Just Friends
by padfoot's prose
Summary: "It's not my fault if you're good at everything!" Troy yelled. Gabriella smirked into her can of coke... Troy and Gabriella have been friends forever, but now she has a boyfriend and every girl at school wants him. What could possibly happen? Troyella
1. Fiftieth Time Lucky?

_**Troy and gabriella have been friend forever. They've beent here for each other at all of the worst and best times, but now Gabriella has a boyfriend and Troy has every other girl in school asking him out. They're both convinced that they're just friends but their friends think otherwise, will anything happen between them... duh, but it might take a while, read on please.**_

**Okay, I wrote this cause i know there are plenty of stories about Gabriella and Troy being best friends, but it seems like in all of them they have this scary friend relationship where they can kiss and stuff and it doesn't matter cause they still think that they're just friends... no way! I mean does that actually happen in real life... probably, but not in mine so it doesn't count. Get ready for a whole lot of tension, lol, I love writing scenes with sexual tension cause the charaters are so stupid... anyway read on and enjoy, this chappy is actually K-rated, but I decided to make it K+ for later on.**

**Disclaimer- I just realsied how cool it would be if celebrities read fanfics about themselves... like, if I was a celebrity (ie, i'm not) I've always said that i'd read my wikipedia page and edit it and stuff and then the mods would be all like 'you don't have the right to edit this page, you don't know that this person is dating this person' or whatever and I'd be like 'yeah right, I AM Jg Rox, of course she's dating Zac Efron' ...hm, sounds good doesn't it... but sadly I'm not a celebrity or dating Zac Efron, in fact I haven't even met him and if I haven't met him that would imply that I have nothing whatspever to do with High School musical cause how pissed would you be if you owned it and hadn't even met Zac Efron... i'd be pretty pissed... so no, i don't own High School Musical... or Zac Efron... and i haven't even made myself a wikipedia page yet... or written fanfic on myself... but oneday i will do all of those things... except for the minor age difference cause on my profile page i think i said i was five... hmmmm...**

**Fiftieth Time Lucky?**

**-**_-Flashback--_

_Gabriella lay back in her chair, watching Troy and his father play basketball with mild interest. Troy managed to steal the ball from his father, but lost it again almost immediately, he watched as his father dribbled the ball to the hop and shot, easily getting it through the net._

"_Come on, Troy!" the young father encouraged his son. "If you focus a little you'll get better." Troy shrugged and sat down in middle of the court sulking. He glanced at Gabriella for help but she was smirking into her can of coke._

"_It's not my fault if you're good at everything!" Troy yelled at her angrily, she stopped smirking and got out of her seat. Sitting next to him on the ground, she grabbed the ball that his dad had left on the court and tossed it to him. Troy caught it easily and stood as she motioned for him to throw it back. He did and she caught it._

"_Good, now pretend that you're throwing it at the square on the backboard there." She pointed at the hoop and Troy looked incredulously at her._

"_Fiftieth time lucky?" He asked sarcastically. She shrugged and watched him shoot, the ball bounced off the backboard and rolled around the ring of the basket. The two seven year olds watched as it kept on circling the hole in the middle of the ring. As if in slow motion, the ball leant a little to the right and fel through the hoop, bouncing noisily on the ground in front of the children. They were silent for a moment, staring at the spot where the ball had just hit the ground. Suddenly they both cheered and hugged each other and danced around the concrete basketball court, falling onto the ground laughing after a while._

"_See, I said you could do it!" Gabriella teased. Troy smiled at her and sat up._

"_Cool, now I can join the school team, maybe they'll put me in the D's, is that good?" Gabriella giggled._

"_Troy, the D's are the second worst team, you just got the ball in the basket, you'll easily make the C's, maybe even the B's." She said excitedly, Troy smiled at her as she sat up too._

"_Thank you for teaching me how to shoot Gabriella." Troy said as sincerely as a seven year old could._

"_My pleasure." Gabriella said back, both having neither idea what the point f thanking people was but doing it anyway._

"_Gabi!" Mrs. Bolton's yell came out from the kitchen window. "Your mum wants to speak to you!" Gabriella stood and ran inside, Troy watching her leave with a confused expression. She disappeared inside and he fell back onto the ground, amazed at how easily it had been for him to get the ball in the basket with her help. He sighed, what would he ever do without his best friend._

_--End Flashback--_

Gabriella Montez dodged a second paper aeroplane before stopping at her locker. She put her bag down and carefully pulled off the poster advertising the next basketball game, as if she cared, and quickly opened the stiff metal door. She tiredly hoisted her heavy bag into her locker, unpacking the books onto their allocated shelves automatically. As she continued unpacking her bag she glanced at all of the photos in her locker, one of her standing with her mum and dad in front of their new house when she was 4, one of her and her dad decorating a Christmas tree when she was 6, all of friends crowding around the piñata at her 12th Birthday party and then one of her and Troy when they were 8, holding hands at her fathers funeral.

"Hey, Gabs." A voice came from behind her.

"Hey, Taylor." She answered not needing to turn around to recognise her best friend's voice.

"You're running late today." Taylor pointed out.

"I know. Mum was upset 'cause today's the day my dad died."

"Oh… sorry."

"No, it's fine." Gabriella assured her friend. "It was 8 years ago, I'm over the whole crying thing, now I can finally just be happy that I have some good memories of him." Gabriella said truthfully. Taylor nodded seriously and grabbed Gabriella's pencil case as it fell out of her locker and onto the floor. Gabriella muttered a thanks and closed her locker, hurrying down the hallway as the bell went and everyone began shuffling off to their homerooms.

"So, have you decided whether or not you'll join the Decathlon team again?" Taylor asked in a would-be casual voice.

"I'm not sure… I have a lot of stuff going on right now."

"Like what?" Taylor asked incredulously and Gabriella shrugged.

"I don't know, my mum's new boyfriend, my dance and singing classes, my tutoring, my job at the corner store and my boyfriend, not to mention studying for the end of yearlies."

"Oh, yeah. But besides all of that-"

"With all of the spare time I'm going to have for studying for the Decathlon, you might as well get Chad or some other basketball guy to do it instead, they'll probably be better for you in the end… especially Chad…" Gabriella glanced sideways at her friend who was blushing slightly.

"What if I got Troy on the team? Would that be enough incentive for you to join too?" Taylor teased.

"Eww, Tay! Troy is one of my best friends, besides, I have a boyfriend and me liking him would just be… gross." Taylor shrugged and turned into their homeroom, putting her books on her deck before following Gabriella to hers at the back of the room.

"Yeah, but you don't even like Josh. You never have." Gabriella shushed Taylor as her boyfriend entered the room, sidling towards her immediately.

"Maybe not, but he's so sweet to me, and he's a great friend anyway." Gabriella explained in a whisper.

"But you don't like him the same way that he likes you, and that isn't fair on him." Taylor continued, then quickly moved back to her desk when Josh arrived at Gabriella's.

"Hey babe." Josh said, kissing Gabriella lightly on the cheek. She smiled at his kiss; secretly glad that he hadn't tried to kiss her on the lips again, she hadn't enjoyed that at all.

"Hey." She replied, her eyes flicking to the door as the first few members of the basketball team began walking in. Josh followed her eyes and looked at the door just as Troy walked in laughing at something, his dark hair messy and looking as though training had just ended. Troy raised his hand at Gabriella and Josh, who both smiled back, Josh's somewhat forced, and sat in his seat at the front, easily catching the basketball that Chad threw at him.

Josh turned back towards his girlfriend, whose eyes were still fixed on Troy at the front of the room. Josh waited for Gabriella to look back at him, but she didn't and he was forced to edge back to his desk when Ms. Darbus entered the room in her usual sweeping shawls and huge glasses.

Most people continued talking as Ms. Darbus glared at the room in general, the exceptions were Sharpay and Ryan, who were eagerly watching their idol and Gabriella who was still absent-mindedly watching Troy. Ms. Darbus cleared her throat dramatically and the room immediately fell silent. The only sound was that of Chad bouncing his basketball on his desk, which he instantly stopped when Ms. Darbus shot him a glare.

"And today's announcements are as follows-" The teacher began, everyone sliding a little further down in their hard plastic chairs.

**I hope that was okay, like i said it's a little different form my normal stories, it's a lot slower, which is good cause toherwise they end up really short. Please review, I like reviews, they make me feel good about myself, they make me feel like I really am a celebrity and really do deserve my own wikipedia page... and to date Zac Efron... which i just decided that I'd be pretty morally opposed to doing if he's still dating Vanessa cos they're cute togther and have they're own coupls name... I wonder what me and Zac Efron would be, I'm open to suggestions for that as well... and me and Orlando Bloom... and me and Chad Michael Murray... and me and- I'll stop now. PLEASE REVIEW**


	2. Like a lemon on top of a carrot!

**Okay, I know pretty much no one has read this yet, and I doubt many people probably ever will, but I had this chapter planned out already and just had to write it. Then i remembered that I'm going away for 3 days and won't be able to post so I thought I'd put this up for anypne who has already read. I know there are a heap of spelling mistakes, as there are in all of my fanfics, but hey, I'm human and if I check over my stories more than once i end up deleting them cause they annoy me, I'm not even sure why, I guess it's cos i can think of 100 things that people can critisise about them and 1 that they can compliment... please prove me worng! R&R!!**

**Disclaimer: Like I said, if i owned this i would've met Zac Efron and made up a couple name for us cause he would've fallen in love with me (only if he and vanessa are broken up)... still can't think of a good couple name though... how about Zac Rox... see that's his first name and my last name (for all you know)... hmm, still the age difference to consider... but if i was 5 and could write stuff as good as this (just work with me here, I live in my own little world of compliments that people never gave me), then by the time i was about... 10, I'd have made a time machine and I'd make both of us 16 cos 16 is a cool age... actually I'd make him 18 cos that's how old he was when he did HSM1, i think... maybe 17, never really knew...**

The moment the bell went Gabriella grabbed her books and sped out of the classroom, finally the hour of torture commonly known as mandatory maths was over. She hurried down the hallway, pausing to tap Troy on the shoulder as she passed him at his locker, he turned and watched her continue down the hallway, glancing back at him with a cheeky smile as she turned the corner. He smiled back and found himself staring at the corner long after she'd disappeared around it. Weird; how could she be so smart and yet so naïve to how he felt about her? He sighed and turned back his locker, resisting jumping back as a fake tanned-face with dyed blonde hair appeared right in front of him.

"Hi Troy!" The random girl said excitedly, not moving away from his face. Troy murmured a hello back and stook two steps back, adding another when he recognised the girl.

"Sadie, hi." He repeated, watching as she began blushing under her layers of makeup at the mention of her name.

"You already said that Troy!" she slapped him lightly and her hand stayed on his arm for a little longer than necessary before he pushed it off. Troy closed his locker, almost catching her hair in it and silently blaming himself for missing, then turned away from Sadie and started towards the cafeteria, as much as it annoyed him that he couldn't sit near Gabriella, at least the only girls near him were the cheerleaders, most of whom already knew he wasn't interested.

"So Troy," Sadie began again, drawing out his name as she said it while following him down the crowded corridor. "Are you going to take me out tonight?" Troy shook his head quickly and she pouted. "But Troy! You promised!" He shrugged and sped up as he pushed through the middle of a crowd hoping to shake her off, she just dodged between the people and came out the other side looking a bit flushed but still pouting in what she apparently thought was a cute way.

"Yeah but I'm busy, just like every other time you ask." He answered uncomfortably, he had in fact -at some point quite a while ago- promised to take her out somewhere, but at the time she'd been an annoying girl with no friends. Now she was an annoying girl with friends… or friend-like figures.

"You're always busy!" She complained and Troy couldn't help nodding in agreement. "What are you busy doing?" Troy rolled his eyes and tried speeding up again, but Sadie was like a flea clinging onto him.

"After school I have basketball, then I have an assignment and tonight my family's going out for dinner."

"Family, schamily." Sadie shrugged, apparently thinking that her comment had made her point.

"I'm part of my family, Sadie, I have to go out dinner with them." Troy said slowly, hoping that she would understand.

"Where're you going?" She asked, suddenly. "I have an idea-"

"You want to meet me there? Yeah right…" he saw her face. "I just mean… my parents wouldn't let me, I'm not allowed to have a girlfriend right now, it'll be too much of a… distraction." He paused before saying the last word, having just caught sight of Gabriella heading down a different hallway. "Look, Sadie, I've gotta run. Basketball, gym, training…" he trailed off and turned quickly down the hallway Gabriella had just disappeared into, faintly hearing Sadie's calls of "bye, Troy! I'll see you soon!" He rolled his eyes and sped up, glancing into classrooms on both sides for Gabriella.

He stopped when the hallway twisted and suddenly recognised where he was. He smiled to himself and continued down the hallway, slowing down when he reached the soundproof music rooms. He looked up and down the hallway in search of someone who could tell him which room Gabriella was in, but the corridor was empty. He could hear the muffled sounds of people singing from inside the windowless rooms and tried to recognise Gabriella's voice but couldn't. He sat down against a wall and closed his eyes. It wasn't often that he got a moment to himself, there were always people interrupting him, telling him what he did and didn't want, what was good and bad for him, what was right and wrong.

His eyes flicked open at that thought. Was it right for him to get distracted by Gabriella? She wasn't even his best friend, not really, Chad was. He closed eyes again, remembering telling Sadie that his parents didn't want him to have a girlfriend at the moment. What if Sadie had taken that the wrong way? What if she'd thought that he actually saw her as a potential girlfriend?

He took a deep breath and let it out. What Sadie thought wasn't really his problem, in fact if he hadn't taken her on as his problem she would never have talk to him. When he'd first met her, she had been really different. For starters her skin had been pale and her hair had been brown, darkish brown too, definitely not the yellow colour she now paraded around with.

She had been friendless in her new school, and partly due to the fact that Troy had knocked her to the ground on her first day, labelling her as a clumsy dork. The only reason she had friend-like figures now was because he'd helped her make some friends… sort of. Technically she'd made the actual friends herself, it was rumoured that she'd started a 'Troy Bolton Fan Club' and as much as Troy didn't want to believe that she'd used his kindness to her advantage he did have to agree that since she'd come there were a lot more girls eyeing him suggestively in the corridors.

Troy inwardly groaned, deciding that waiting for Gabriella wasn't going to allow him anytime for lunch. He opened his eyes and just sat on the dirty floor for another minute, still appreciating the calm of the scene. His trance-like state was suddenly broken when a bushy-haired boy came marching down the corridor glaring at him.

"Troy! Where have you been?" Troy stood up quickly and faced his best friend.

"I guess we're skipping the niceties," he muttered under his breath then half-smiled up at Chad who was badly suppressing a smile too. "I was ambushed by Sadie." Chad gave him a knowing nod and stopped bothering to suppress his smile.

"Ouch… I feel for you man." He said seriously.

"Thanks Chad," Troy responded, playing along with the joke. "It's not easy when someone's so… what's the word?"

"Ugly?" Troy shook his head.

"No, not ugly, so-"

"Stupid?"

"No, close but not right, so-"

"-much like a lemon on top of a carrot!" Troy laughed and nodded.

"Yeah, that's it man, thanks for your help." Chad grinned at his friend.

"I hope your not talking about me?" Troy turned and saw Taylor standing outside an open door with an accusing expression.

"No, of course not." Chad said, walking over to her. "You're much more like a chocolate bar." Taylor giggled in a very un-Taylor-like way as he kissed her neck in apparent imitation of eating a chocolate. Troy tried to avert his gaze by staring at the open door, but then his eyes fell on the girl who was walking out of it.

Her shoulder length, ebony curls hung loosely behind her ears, clipped in place with a white clip, matching her pink and white singlet top and mini shorts.

"Ew you guys, get a room!" She exclaimed disgustedly, seeing Chad and Taylor, then her eyes flicked to Troy who was still staring at her. "Hey Troy!" she said lightly, her tone instantly changing and began walking towards him, careful not to look at Chad and Taylor.

"Hey Gabi." He was careful not to let his tone reveal anything that he was feeling. "Singing lesson?" He asked when she was closer. She nodded, hoping that he hadn't heard anything. It wasn't that she thought she was bad; she just didn't want Troy to hear her practising. "I couldn't hear you," he murmured, as if reading her mind.

"Oh, okay." She answered quickly; suddenly aware of how awkward their conversation was, especially with the interesting noises coming from Chad and Taylor behind her.

Troy cleared his throat uncertainly and watched as a junior hurried out of her singing lesson, giving him a scared look as she brushed past him.

"I wasn't that small when I was her age I swear." Gabriella felt a giggle escape her mouth, and then blushed when Troy looked at her, questioning the Gabriella-ness of it.

"She's terrified of you, and you're so mean to her." Gabriella explained. "I bet you don't even understand why she's so scared."

"No, not really, but all of them act like that these days, so I'm used to it." Gabriella hit him playfully, pulling her hand away much faster than Sadie had. Troy sent her a fake-glare and hit her on the hip. She hit him on the shoulder, a little harder. He hit her on the arm. She hit him on the cheek. He hit her hand as it moved away from him again. She hit him on the chest, then, when she suddenly realised where her hand was forgot to move it as she stared into his cobalt eyes.

Troy opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. You're friends, he told himself fiercely. Do you want to end up like Taylor and Chad, completely unable to be around when you're together? He mentally hit himself as he felt his body begin tingling where her hand was and at every other place that she'd hit him.

He's your friend, not your crush, Gabriella's conscience told her sternly. Don't you dare do anything, or you'll feel worse. She stood rigid; suddenly worried that he might touch her again and how she'd respond. Her entire body was tingling as she felt his chest rise up and down under her hand, his breaths shallow.

What if she can feel my heart beating? Troy thought suddenly. Then she'll know how nervous I am… he felt his eyes begin watering and realised with a start that he hadn't blinked. He was about to when the amazing depth of her eyes hit him. What he had at first seen as chocolate brown orbs he now saw as pools of immeasurable depth, and all of a sudden he wished he could dive deeper into them.

Gabriella willed herself to blink and break the trance she was stuck in. He probably thinks I'm a weirdo, staring into his eyes like they're… like they're… curtained windows which I only wish I was close enough to open. She felt his heart under her hand, beating as fast as hers was, but for once she didn't register the rate of the heart that her hand was pressed against, whenever her and Josh were in a moment like this she felt herself counting how many beats a minute his heart was beating; but with Troy all she could think of was the fact that his heart was so close to her physically, but so far away in all other senses.

Both couples broke apart when a bell went, ringing shrilly throughout the school. Chad and Taylor separated, both giggling girlishly as they realised that they'd been kissing for half of their break. Troy and Gabriella jumped away from each other, realising how long they'd been standing like that and what people would've thought if anyone had seen them. Troy scratched the back of his neck awkwardly and Gabriella bit her lip, silently cursing herself for being so obvious. She muttered an excuse and had disappeared down the corridor before Chad and Taylor had finished giggling. Taylor followed her friend and Chad caught up to Troy, still standing in the middle of the corridor, as utterly confused at what had happened as Gabriella was.

"C'mon man, we'll already have missed all of the good food at the cafeteria, quick before they start serving yesterday's." Troy nodded vaguely and followed Chad back up the hallway. Trying to resist screaming at himself for being so obvious about how he felt about Gabriella.

**Yay, my first mention on tension... rhyme! Please review if you liked it... and pretend you liked it for my sake if you didn't... also I sort of wanted tis to be my my big debut into fanfiction.. it was supposed to be a big success because i've planned it to be long... I know I'm on at least a few people's author alert so all of you are expect to review... I probably shouldn't sa this cos I'll jus get disappointed but i have this dream of reaching 100 reviews for this story.**

**If you think this needs anything that you don't think it'll have tell me and I'll see if i can incorporate it... I will put your name into my immortal text if you review enough... maybe as Troy's girlfriend, Gabriella's boyfriend (if you're a guy, hard to judge considering some of the screen names, like Jg Rox, am I a girl or guy?) or maybe just someone in Troy or Gabriella's family to play safe... but I promise if you're nice enough to me you'll get a mention... so flatter me... please?**


	3. You hang out with Troy Bolton?

**Yay, here's my next chapter, thnx 2 all of those ppl who left review, i luv u (as reviewers which is a level lower than my enemies...i'm joking, love is a very bihg word (a whole 4 letters) so lets stikc with really really really really really really really really really really really really appreciate all of ure reviews, plz leave more). I'm away again today nd tomorrow so sorry, no updates, unless my friend lets me write them during her sleepover, but somehow i doubt it.**

**I was told off by my one friend who reads these for my zac efron rambling, so from now on i shall ramble about m self and a good friend of mine called caz norfe who is pretty good-looking to... i actually got that name from a friend but i love it... anyway, READ and after that REVIEW!!! plz**

Gabriella stood at her locker, staring blankly at her diary. She had homework for every subject and she had to practice for her singing and dance exams, why did she ever take on so many extra-curricula's? Plus her mum had said something about dinner tonight with friends, so she wouldn't have much time for homework. She sighed heavily and blinked, keeping her eyes shut for longer than usual. Her thoughts wee fuzzy for a moment, just a mixed up mess of everything going on in her life, then suddenly they sharpened and revealed one thing… Troy, probably the biggest part of her life.

They'd been friends since before Gabriella could remember; basically they'd grown up together. She laughed inwardly remembering their childhoods, endless days of basketball and every other sport in the world. She remembered that Troy had always been jealous of her because she was good at 'everything', she'd been doing well in classes then too, and had, weirdly enough, also been really keen on sport. She'd even been the one to teach him to play basketball, something that she enjoyed rubbing in his face at every opportunity. But after everything, lately, something had changed about their friendship. Suddenly she'd seen him one day and it had hit her how incredibly good looking he was, in fact, shed been staring at him for so long that she'd crashed into an open locker and been out cold for a few minutes. She couldn't even bringer herself to laugh as she remembered the day late last year.

_--Flashback--_

_Gabriella walked through the big, double doors of East High and sighed, her usual response to a new school day. She dodged through the crowds of people milling around the corridor, ducking under paper planes and basketballs alike. She frowned when she noticed the strange number of people wearing Wildcat colours, sure, there were a few hard-core fans that wore nothing but red, white and gold, but most people only wore the colours on game days. She stopped, suddenly remembering that today was a game day, then continued speeding to her locker, hoping that she'd at least have something to cover her mostly blue outfit._

_Reaching her locker with relative ease, Gabriella threw it open and shuffled through the mess of paper and odd bits of clothing scattered through it. She found a pink top and black shorts, but there was no way that they were going to go with her shoes or each other so she rolled her eyes at her stupidity and put them back, hoisting her bag up with them. She closed her locker door harder than usual in annoyance and scanned the bus corridor for anyone who might lend her something to wear for the day. He eyes fell upon Sadie, a lonely-ish girl with dark hair and fair skin who was in her chemistry class. She quickly sidled up to Sadie, tapping her on the shoulder to get her attention._

"_Sadie-" Gabriella began, knowing that the girl didn't really know who she was._

"_Yeah…" Sadie turned and stared at Gabriella, jealously etched all over her normally kind face._

"_Uh, I know I don't really know you well, but we're in the same chemistry class and you've always seemed nice," Gabriella paused, waiting to see if her tiny comment marking them as equals had sunk in, it had. She smiled, ages ago she'd learnt that saying things as simple as 'our class' instead of 'my class' could get you a long way. "So I was wondering if you have a spare jacket or something. I completely forgot that today was the game and I fel really bad being in… blue." She stopped again, glancing at Sadie for any sign of reassurance. Sadie was still looking uncertainly at her._

"_But aren't you friends with Troy Bolton?" she asked, the jealousy being revealed now in her slightly sarcastic voice._

"_Yeah, but he didn't say anything about it last night when we were hanging out. He normally does but he was acting weird and didn't really talk much, I'm never up to date with anything so I pretty much always rely on my friends to tell me when things are on." Sadie raised her eyebrows and looked away, evidently this was going nowhere._

"_You hang out with Troy Bolton and don't know when games are on? If I was cool enough to hang out with him I'd always know." Gabriella shrugged uncomfortably; this wasn't the first time people ad said stuff like that to her._

"_You know, he isn't actually as 'basketball orientated' as people think. He does have a whole life outside of school." She snapped, sounding rather sharper than she'd meant to, at the same time noticing multiple pictures of Troy with love-hearts around them plastering Sadie's diary._

"_Whatever, it's still obvious that basketball is a big part of his life. And if I was his friend, I'd make a big part of mine too."_

"_You know just because I'm his friend doesn't mean my world revolves around him!" Gabriella found herself suddenly angry, but unable to figure out why._

"_Yeah, but you act like it's nothing being his friend when he isn't there, then when he is you're all sucking up to him and being his best buddy!" Gabriella rolled her eyes: this was such a pointless conversation._

"_Whatever," she said walking away, then stopped when she noticed something in Sadie's locker. "What's that?" She asked suddenly, eyeing the picture right in the middle of Sadie's locker door, obviously deserving the place of honour._

"_It's Troy, duh, everyone who likes him has this picture." Gabriella stared at the picture, not believing how weirdly… hot he looked. Troy, hot? She shook herself mentally, no way; he's your friend not boyfriend._

"_Where's it from?" she asked, not realising what it sounded like she wanted._

"_You need to be member, and you're not, so I'm not saying. Besides, you can just go and take your own pictures of Troy you went with him to the winter dance!" Gabriella started as she noticed an arm in the corner of the picture… her arm. It was at the winter dance about a month ago, Troy was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and dark jeans, looking unusually attractive as he smiled lightly at someone next to the camera._

_Gabriella turned away from Sadie and began walking down the corridor, too distracted by Troy in the picture to notice the increasing noise levels as she stumbled, almost blindly down the corridor. It was as if a sudden numbness had replaced the feelings that she used to have for Troy; it had only been a month ago when he'd been wearing that and she had criticised it playfully, as a friend, but suddenly she found him in that photo looking extremely good-looking. She shook herself, no way was she falling for Troy Bolton, not her friend, but, glancing up it seemed that all over the walls were those pictures, digging themselves into her brain so that they were all she could see._

_Gabriella blinked hard and he pictures slowly faded from her minds eye, instead, she fund that her feet had carried her right to the centre of a big crowd of people, all, of course, cheering as Troy led the basketball team along the hallway. Gabriella couldn't help but gape as she suddenly noticed how defined his muscles were and how soft his hair looked. She tried to turn away, but wasn't able to tear her eyes away from his deep cobalt eyes and annoyingly kissable-looking lips._

_He must've seen her because he suddenly looed straight at her and raised his hand in greeting, looking away almost immediately. His face flushed red when everyone started pushing and pulling him towards the gym again and, brushing past Gabriella slightly as he was forced away, she felt a warm tingling feeling flow through her body from where his skin had brushed hers. She turned back to look at him continue down the now almost empty corridor and began walking back, hoping to find a crowd free route to somewhere where she could collect her thoughts. Before Troy had completely left her mind, she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head and let out a quiet cry before falling to the ground._

_Gabriella had awoken 5 minuted later in the nurse's office, staring into the one pair of eyes that she dreaded. His cobalt stare seemed to pierce through every single secret that she'd stashed away in her mind, and Gabriella was met with a sudden temptation to reach out and pull Troy's head closer to hers so that she could kiss him more easily. Wait… kiss? She shook her head and sat up quickly, pitching forward when she felt another sharp pain run through her head adding to the pain that was already there._

"_Ouch! Yeah, she's fine, I mean I'm fine, I mean… she just woke up." Troy stopped awkwardly realising the alternate meaning of what he'd said, looking up as Chad glanced at him, obviously realising it too. The nurse rushed in and held an icepack out for Gabriella who took it gratefully and put it against her throbbing head._

"_Will she be okay?" Taylor's concerned voice came from Gabriella's right but she didn't think moving her head would be a good idea so didn't turn._

"_Hm, only a slight concussion, but she was out for a while, probably best to take her home." The nurse decided and looked between Troy, Taylor and Chad for advice on who to call._

"_I guess you could call her mum…" Taylor began, but stopped when Troy shook his head._

"_No, she's out at a conference today, won't be home until late, she can go back to my place though, out parents are friends and mum's home today." The nurse nodded and left to call Troy's mum._

"_Are you sure that's okay, Troy" Gabriella asked, wondering why she'd needed to say Troy in that sentence but at the same time appreciating how nice it sounded rolling off her tongue._

"_Yeah, of course, she's been looking after you since…" he thought for a moment, both of them ignoring Taylor and Chad who were staring between the two with raised eyebrows. "Since that time when we were four and you fell off that swing in the park. You were crying so much and she took you home and gave you all of these bandaids even though all you'd done was bruised you knee and she said that she'd called the hospital and they said that if you weren't better after a rest they'd come straight over and look at you themselves." Gabriella laughed as the memory of the whole thing came back to her._

"_Yeah, and you promised that you'd stay awake to call them if I didn't look like I was getting better, but you ended up-"_

"_-falling asleep too." Troy finished for her, both still laughing, like it was the funniest thing ever. Chad and Taylor both continued staring between their best friends, trying to figure out exactly what was so funny about the situation. They were saved from asking by the return of the nurse who was looking flustered at the high levels of noise._

"_Shh!" she said indignantly to Troy, who instantly went quiet, his face still getting redder and redder as he suppressed more laughter. The nurse watched him worriedly, as if trying to figure out whether what he had was contagious or not, but simply decided on getting rid of him._

"_Mr. Danforth, Miss McKessie, thank you for your help, you and Mr. Bolton can go now, Lucy is on her way to get your friend and I promise she's in safe hands with me. Taylor and Chad nodded and began heading towards the door, Chad pulling Troy behind him as he went. They reached the door and Chad released Troy's arm for long enough for him to give Gabriella a quick wave a smile, which her melting then and there. She waited for him to disappear out the door, then sunk down in her bed, losing herself to far off thought about what Troy's smile could really have meant._

_--End Flashback--_

**When i wrote that i thought there was way too much flashback, but whatever, i said tis wud be slow... review please, i'm sorry that i haven't rambled nearly as much as usual, which reminds me:**

**Disclaimer: No, i dom't own HSM (again, i hvnt met caz norfe either, nd he was an extra in HSM, that guy with the dark brown hair who sings bet on it, that was him... very minmal role in the movie i think...)**


	4. My Face is Here

**Ok, I am sooooooooooooo sorry that this took ages to update, but i sort of had a break down nd couldn't write anything nd started deleting everything, then i decided to turn off my comp... which was probably a good idea in the end. Anyway, that's what i warned people about in chapter 2 so yeah... that's also why this chapter is so short and probably a load of I'm-not'allowed'tosay-that-word-cos-of-this-thing's-rating. So please review.**

**Disclaimer- Okay... there seemed to be a little confusion of Caz Norfe, or Norfe Caz as i call him now, just to get things straight: What sort of sane parents would name their kid Norfe? Or Caz (kidding, I know it can be a real name)? Alright, so Norfe Caz is a made up being, but twiddle he letter around a little and you have the name of a real being... twiddle... i like that word! Anyway, I promise that when I am rich and famous cand can afford to buy High School Musical I'll invite you all to the party, cos there will be a party, a HUGE party... R&R**

"Hey, Gabriella!" Gabriella turned around at the sound of the familiar voice, fighting back to uncomfortable urge to blush as Troy's basketball uniform came into her view, sitting on a pair of broad shoulders and a toned chest; she didn't look any lower than that. "Uh, Gabi, my face is here." Troy waved a hand in front of Gabriella and she quickly looked up at him, suddenly feeling very small.

"Yeah, sorry. It's just that you're… um… your face is sort of… outside of my viewpoint." Gabriella stammered, trying her hardest to act normal. Troy let out a slightly strangled chuckle, which stopped almost immediately. Gabriella looked over his shoulder for a while, thinking hard about a reason why he would be acting so weird. Annoyingly, her mind kept on coming to the conclusion that he liked her and he'd just been remembering the same thing as she had, the day that he'd first started liking her as more than a friend. In fact, Gabriella found herself getting so caught up in her thoughts that she was suddenly deciding the best answer to when he asked her out.

"Uh… Gabi, look, about earlier." Gabriella stared blankly at Troy, all thoughts of him liking her gone from her mind. Troy seemed to notice the blank look on her face so continued. "At the music rooms…" And the memory came back, mercilessly destroying all hopes of at date from Gabriella's mind.

"Yeah… right… about that-" she began, not quite sure of what to say.

"It was completely my fault." Gabriella stared at her friend.

"How is it your fault?" She asked, forgetting about being nervous.

"Well cause… I started… how did it actually start?" Troy's tone changed from awkward to questioning as both of them racked their brains for the cause of their 'moment'.

"I honestly don't remember." Gabriella laughed, relieved that all of the tension seemed to have gone. Troy smiled at her and she felt a tiny knot of tension appear again, but pushed it away quickly. She was about to smile back when another familiar but not so welcome voice disturbed her.

"Gabsta!" Gabriella winced at Josh's chosen nickname, then turned around to mile at him.

"Hey Josh." Josh nodded towards Troy who waved his hand back, neither of them smiling.

"So babe, are we going out tonight?" Gabriella shook her head.

"Sorry, Josh, I can't, family thing." Josh nodded in a would-be understanding way.

"Then you want to go out now?" Josh seemed convinced that he and Gabriella could squash in some time together everyday.

"Um…" she glanced at Troy who shrugged. "Yeah sure, I'll just finish packing my stuff."

"Cool, I'll meet you at my car." Gabriella nodded and watched Josh merge back into the crowd heading towards the car park. She then turned back to her locker and shoved the last few books she needed into her bag.

"Bye Gabi." She looked up and remembered Troy was still there.

"Yeah, bye. Good luck with training." Troy smiled at her and walked away too. Gabriella sighed; her life was so stuffed up at the moment.

**Please, dont shoot!!!!! I know that was soooooooo short and that my ramblings are probably longer than the whole story but I have exams and stuff and I'm stressing out way more than people think (B&R, you know who you are, this is now our pact and you're not to say anything about this school -- if u don't know me then you can ignore that). I'm also stressing cos we're moving house again and it'll be the week of my exams that we're moving... plus I had my little breakdown a few days ago and deleted a lot of stuff on my comp, which wasn't good... you probably think I'm like, mentally unstable now, but I'm not... i promise, just look at my previous ramblings for proof... Reviews make me happy... they're like my sourch of highs cos i can turn on my computer and see all fo these little messages in ym email box saying: (insert name here) has reviewed your story on like those emails... ;-)**


	5. shower

**Omg omg omg omg!!! I did it!!! I finally worte a new chapter yay me!!!! (I probably get more excited about posting this than my readers do, but whatever). I am soooooooooooooooooooooo sorry that I haven't updated for sooooooooooooo long, but I couldn't think of anything and I've been stressing about home/school stuff plus about writing my much requested sequel to 'I wanna Love You' which i don't think i'm capable of writing (Tigger (you know who you are) I'm still remember your dare, I'm working on it... kinda). Anyway, here this is, and it's kinda longish too (considering I wrote it in...looks at clock... 21 minutes... maybe that seems like a long time... but whatever. In this chappy the plot thickens a little, but seriosuly just a little, and I use a few plot devices cause I love them "Of course there was a convient straight, arm length stick when you were looking for something to make the splint out of... of course there was" Lol...**

**Now for the... DISCLAIMER!!! Yay, I bet you weren't expecting that: Okay, so you kow how Christmas is coming up? What if, I was really nice and good and everything and you gave me the rights to High School Musical? Deal great, I hope all of the papers aren't too big to fit under the tree... and don't bother wrapping it, it'll be a pain to try and unwrap it really neatly (which I do cause I'm weird). You are also allowed to send me the perks that come with owning High School Musical (this includes money... lots of money, a really cool poster of a bigger than life-sized Troy (we all fantisize about the poster, don't lie), that pink hat the Ryan wears (which one?) and... other stuff... like people... or person... oooh! what about the clothes Norfy Caz wears when he's singing 'Bet On It'!!!!!!!!!!!! (i hope we havce all discovered by now that if you spell Norfy Caz backwards and change the 'y' to an 'e'...) but i don't like the shoes... oh well, I guess the shirt'd be worth it... this is starting to sound gross so I'll stop, please enjoy.**

Gabriella's face was resting against the window of Josh's expensive car. He'd just taken her to afternoon tea at some fancy café that didn't serve anything she knew except coffee. Then he'd taken her to some lookout so that the wind could mess up all of her hair. Yay, fun. Now he was taking her home after their 'fantastic' date and talking about who knows what.

"-so, do you get it?" Gabriella heard Josh's slightly high-pitched voice. She nodded in agreement, trying to figure out what he was talking about while her thoughts had been with a completely different person.

---

Troy was bouncing a basketball around his backyard, seeing how far from the hoop he could be and still make the shot. So far it wasn't going so good. He stood at halfway down the court and focussed on the red basket in front of him. He bounced the ball a few times to make sure his muscles weren't tensed up. He held the ball still, carefully lining up his shot. He made to throw it when… his phone buzzed.

Troy jumped midway through shooting and the ball ended up speeding towards the kitchen window. It smashed through and he heard his mother scream. Lucy Bolton's head poked out the broken window glaring at her son disapprovingly.

"Sorry mum." He muttered to her, trying to extract his phone from his pocket **(I know that basketball shorts don't have pockets, but these ones do… I also know that it'd be kinda weird to play a sport with your phone in your pocket… but we call it a plot device… it helps me… don't ask who we is…)** while still looing sorry.

"Well you'll be the one fixing it, and you better do that on the weekend cause the weatherman is predicting rain on Monday."

"Mum, how can they know what the weather's going to be like in a week? Seriously, how?" Lucy scowled at him one more time and withdrew her head. He smirked and looked at his phone.

---

Gabriella smiled to herself when her phone vibrated in her hand '_y r u bored?'_ Troy sent back to her. One word: '_Josh'_. Troy laughed and sat down on the grass to continue their conversation. '_Lol, wot did he do?'_

'_nothing dats y im bored…!'_ Troy laughed again, he could just imagine Gabriella's annoyed expression. He loved winding her up just so he could see her face go red in annoyance and watch her flounce away when she couldn't think of a response to something he said. He looked down when his phone buzzed again. _'wot r u doing?'_

'_Sitting'_

'_thnx, I relli needed 2 no dat'_

'_I cudv sed showering'_

'_ewwww!' _Gabriella had to hold back a laugh as she read his message, what would Troy looked like when he was showering **(not an uncommon thought…… jks)**?

'_how can u shower nd txt da same time?'_ Gabriella's curiosity got the better of her as she wondered if she really was receiving text messages from a naked Troy.

'_I can't…' _The car stopped and Gabriella looked up from her phone, subtly stashing it back in her pocket when she realised that Josh was looking at her.

"What were you laughing at?" Gabriella knew that her expression had gone blank. Why did she feel so guilty when all she'd been doing was texting Troy?

"Nothing." Josh raised his eyebrows. And why was she so bad at lying?

"Nothing?" Josh asked, thoroughly unconvinced.

"Oh… I mean… just… something I remembered…" Gabriella trailed of lamely, racking her brains for a funny memory that didn't involve Troy.

"What sort of something?" Why did Josh have to be so nosy?

"Just something that Troy said-" Gabriella broke off, was Troy really the only person she was thinking of right now? How pathetic. "-the other day." She finished, hoping that she hadn't paused for too long. Josh's expression cleared and he opened his door, walking around the front of the car to open Gabriella's for her. She muttered a "thanks" and reluctantly took the hand that he offered as he lead her up the front path to her house.

They reached the door and Josh rung the doorbell, ignoring Gabriella's comment that she could let herself in. The door opened and Gabriella's mum stood there smiling at her daughter.

"Good afternoon Elena." Josh greeted her easily.

"Hello, Josh, it's nice to see you."

"I was just returning your daughter from our date, she said she was going out to dinner so I couldn't have her all night." Gabriella winced, coming out of anyone else's mouth that would've sounded gross, but Josh made it sound way too natural. Elena smiled motherly at him, glancing at her daughter with a curious expression.

"Well thank you for being so good about leaving her early." Josh smiled as both him and Elena looked at Gabriella.

"Yeah…uh, thanks, the coffee was great." She said, pulling her hand out of Josh's and walking into the house next to her mother.

"And I bet you loved the view from that lookout too." Josh laughed and Gabriella just smiled, unsure of whether he was laughing cause he knew she was annoyed that her hair had been messed up there, or for some other mysterious reason.

"It's sounds wonderful." Elena cut in, breaking the awkwardness that her daughter was feeling. "But I really must take Gabriella now, she needs to get ready for dinner at Troy's."

Both Josh and Gabriella turned to stare at her mum. Josh had a stunned expression on his face, which became accusing when he looked back at his girlfriend.

"We're having dinner with Troy's family?" Gabriella asked, trying to get the message to Josh that she hadn't known, to her mother that Josh really didn't need to hear that, and to anyone that wanted to know that it was dinner with Troy's _family _not Troy necessarily. Unfortunately no one seemed to get their intended message.

"Yes, I told you this morning." Gabriella closed her eyes the second the words left her mother's mouth. She wanted to scream out "NOOO!", clamp her hands over Josh's ears and run upstairs just to escape the situation all at the same time. Instead she just stood there gaping at her mother. "So, I'm sorry Josh, but she needs to shower and everything." Gabriella felt a guilty blush creep into her cheeks at the word, despite the terrible situation she was in. Then she thought of how immature it must seem blushing at the word 'shower', which made her blush even more.

Josh was staring at his girlfriend's reddening **(apparently that's actually a word)** face with raised eyebrows and Elena had already excused herself and gone back into the lounge room to finish setting up the TV so it would record Gabriella's favourite show. Gabriella just stood there; her mind whirling at the thought of the word 'shower' which was now decidable-y hilarious, and trying desperately to not laugh. Suddenly she couldn't hold it back any longer and a very ungraceful "Ha!" escaped her delicate lips. Josh still stared at her, his eyebrows now disappearing below his fringe (which wasn't all that long) as his girlfriend held a hand over her mouth and dissolved in fits of silent laughter.

"What's so funny?" Josh asked slowly, probably thinking that Gabriella was sick or something.

"It's just… the word… 'shower'… HA!… it was… what… I was… thinking of… earlier… the funny thing… with… Troy-" Then her laughing stopped suddenly. No sane person would tell their boyfriend that they'd been laughing about the word 'shower' and how it related to a funny situation with a boy. No one. Except Gabriella. Josh looked shocked at first, then annoyed, then angry, then blank. He turned stiffly and walked away.

"I hope you enjoy your dinner." He muttered just loud enough for Gabriella to hear. She gulped. Whoops.

**Okay, you can hopefully tell from my more crazy than usual introduction plus the craziness of this chapter that I'm in a crazy mood right now. A friend gave me a poster of Zace Efron on the weekend... it isn't on my wall... it's under my pillow... jks... it's on the cei;ling above my bed so that I can look at it as i fall asleep... that's a joke too... it's in a roll of posters including ones of Jesse McCartney (who i really do know is sooooo no 'in') that I'm not brave enough to put on my wall.**

**REVIEW!!! PLZ!?**


	6. Algebra

**I FEEL ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE FOR NOT UPDATING THIS FOR SO LONG, I'M SO SORRY! I've been working on I Want and the chapter of First Time I posted was so bad and I got like one review and I felt like if I updated this it'd be just as bad. I am so sorry and I hope that people haven't given up on this cause it's still love it to be my big debut into FacFic society.**

**This chapted is sort of long (for me) so I hope it just sort of begisn to amke up for the horrible thinbg i did by not updating, i have told peopel that i ahve a problem with commiting to stuff and this is just a huge example of that, I am so sorry and I'll really try to stcik with this for as long as it takes to finish. I hope this chapter isn't too confusing and that it's still in a similar style to the previous ones, considering the huge gap between whe i wrote them it could be marginally different.**

**My (in)famous DISCLAIMER: okay, so I'm sorry but my group of friends (inclduing me) is over Norfy Caz (ie, Zac Efron) now so I can't make my disclaimers all about him. I still haven't put that poster up yet (the one that i mentioend in the last chapter in one of my A/N's, but the one of Jesse McCartney is up now... right above my head (pathetically enough I'm not joking)), but it's considerably smaller than the Zac Efron one and I seriously don't have the guts to put it up. Anyway, i still don't own HSM, and also didn't have the guts to put it on my Christmas list... I'm such a wimp.**

Gabriella showered quickly, then stood in her room considering her choices of outfits for dinner. She wanted to look good, but she didn't want it to look like she wanted to look good; how could she do that? Carefully.

She hoisted her towel further up her body, just in case anyone did suddenly walk into her room for no reason. Opening her wardrobe, she glanced through the clothes hanging in it. There was a vast assortment of dresses, some fancy, some sleek, some embarrassing poofy ones that she had no idea how they got there and some casual ones, but none of them seemed to suit the occasion. She closed the door with a slam and turned to the drawers next to it. The drawer slid open easily, and, as if she was meant to find it, a white top sat on top of the mess of shirts, newly washed. Gabriella picked it up, vaguely remembering wearing it to Taylor's house a few weekends ago. She held it out critically, it was reasonably low-cut, so could pass off as semi-formal, but not overly revealing.

Gabriella nodded at her choice and grabbed a pair of black shorts off the floor from the pile of clothes her mum had left for her to put away. Getting dressed swiftly, she studied herself in front of the mirror. She brushed her hair quickly, already having dried it, and pulled it up in a loose, low ponytail.

A sharp knock sounded on the door, causing Gabriella to jump from her state of trance-like obsession with looking at herself in the mirror.

"Gabi!" Her mother's voice came softly through the door. "Gabi!" Gabriella looked at the door, trying to decide whether or not to answer.

"Yeah?" her voice was just as soft and quiet as her mother's.

"Are you ready to go? We're due at Lucy and Jack's in 20 minutes." Silence. "Gabi?" Gabriella sighed, and kept her eyes on the door as it opened a crack and saw Elena's head pop into the room. "Are you alright?" Gabriella shrugged, then shook her head, then nodded.

"I don't know… do I look… okay?" Elena had an understanding expression on her face.

"You look beautiful." Gabriella smiled at her mum.

"Thanks."

"Troy will love it." Gabriella's eyes widened.

"Huh?" Elena's smile grew wider.

"Don't worry, I won't say a thing." She patted Gabriella's hand and left the room again, her daughter gaping openly at her.

"Great… even my mum knows." Gabriella muttered to herself as she stood and followed Elena out of the room, grabbing her bag on the way.

---

Once she'd arrived at the Bolton's house, Gabriella instantly felt embarrassed about her outfit. As un-dressy as it was, she still felt over-dressed in it, and desperately wished that she'd thought of bringing a jacket. Elena sat in the living room, talking with Lucy and Jack lightly, all of the adults completely ignoring the awkward silence between their children.

"So… what are you doing in maths right now?" Troy attempted to start some sort of conversation.

"Um… right now I think we're doing more algebra, but it seems like we're always doing something algebra-related in maths, so it hardy counts as a topic." Gabriella eagerly seised the chance at some essence of normality, and was happily surprised when Troy chuckled lightly, obviously actually at least a little bit interested in the topic of conversation.

"Yeah, we're doing some sort of… wiat, what was it?"

"Knowing what you do in class might actually require listening in class, so it's understandable that you have no idea what topic you're doing." Troy chuckled again and eased himself back into his armchair. Gabriella felt her eyes uncontrollably flicker to the bit of tanned skin revealed at the hem of his shirt before hurriedly tearing her gaze back to his face, disgusted at herself for looking.

"Yeah, probably. But seriously, why do so much algebra; I could swear we've been learning it since pre-school…"

"And yet you still don't understand it. Troy, you probably couldn't even do primary school algebra." Troy put on an expression of mock-hurt.

"Ouch, I feel very offended and betrayed. You call yourself my friend…" he trailed off to muttering incoherently, and the effect may have worked except that Gabriella kept catching random words like "basketball", "hair" and at some stage "toilet". She raised her eyebrows and resisted laughing as Troy's words became even quieter and more random.

"When have I ever called myself your friend?" Troy stopped muttering and looked up, then let a puzzled look onto his face. He scratched his head as if he was thinking hard, counted on his fingers and nodded as if he knew what he was doing. When he'd stopped 'thinking' he put on a serious expression and looked Gabriella directly in the eyes. She knew he was going to say something stupid, she really did, but it was impossible to help getting into a slightly serious mood; after all, he was looking her in the eyes. Troy took a deep breath and prepared to speak.

"Never." Gabriella fell back into her chair shaking her head; she knew it was going to be a stupid answer. But she couldn't help smiling as Troy continued looking at her directly in the eyes, obviously trying to hold back a smile. "I honestly don't think anyone has ever walked up to me and said "you're my friend," but Chad might of… I'm not sure." Gabriella laughed and finally let herself relax, she'd been stupid to think that it' be awkward between them, it was only her with these weird confused half-feelings, so why would Troy have any reason to act awkward?

"Does anyone actually do that, cause if they do then I don't gave any friends."

"Oh, I've noticed." Gabriella glared at Troy as he smirked at his own joke.

"Ha ha ha." She said sarcastically, and Troy just smirked harder.

"But back to the subject of this conversation. When will anyone ever use 12 years of algebra in their later life? When?"

"You said we started learning it in preschool, so it'd be more than 12 years." Gabriella pointed out.

"That's beside the point. When?" Gabriella rolled her eyes.

"In heaps of jobs."

"Like what?" She glared at Troy again and saw an evil smirk playing on his lips; she knew he didn't want her to answer, so began answering.

"Architect, computer programmer, any type of salesman, business manager, store owner, teacher, scoreboard-"

"There's actually a job being a scoreboard?"

"No, that one was a joke."

"Oh."

"Yes."

"It wasn't very funny."

"I know. Shut up."

"But I won't need it if I become a profession basketballer. Is that a word?" Troy glanced over at their parents briefly, then looked back at Gabriella.

"I don't think it is, no. And you will need algebra in basketball."

"Name one time when I'd need it in basketball." Troy challenged, leaning forward again to attempt to intimidate Gabriella more.

"Um, let's think. To add up your score, duh." Gabriella said, emphasising the 'duh'.

"Nup. That's not algebra. Two plus five equals…" He paused.

"Seven."

"Yeah, seven, no algebra there, simple plus."

"Addition."

"Do I look like I care?" Troy pointed to his smirking face and Gabriella shrugged in response to his question.

"What about… if Troy scored four point and Chad scored ten-"

"Chad would never score more points than me." Troy challenged jokingly.

"Well in this hypothetical he can." Troy grumbled to himself but said nothing, further, so Gabriella continued. "-And you need to find out how many points were scored in total."

"What about everyone else on the team?"

"It's a two person team."

"I never play with Chad when we do two-on-two, we'd always win if we did." Gabriella rolled her eyes.

"Troy, it's a hypothetical." He shrugged, obviously thoroughly unconvinced hat such a flawed hypothetical could actually be useful in his life. "So you use algebra to figure it out."

"No you don't, you just do my score plus Chad's, one number plus another number, it's not algebra." Gabriella groaned.

"That's not the point."

"Yes it is." Tory argued, his eyes glinting excitedly as he prepared himself for the argument.

"No it isn't!" Gabriella raised her voice slightly.

"Is!" Troy matched her tone.

"Is not!" She spoke a little louder.

"Is!" again he matched her.

"Isn't!" now Gabriella began to yell.

"Is!"

"IT ISN'T TROY!" she yelled at him, causing all of the parents to turn and look at her. She instantly felt the blood run to her cheeks and looked down at her knees in embarrassment.

"What isn't?" Troy asked innocently, the adult still looking between him and Gabriella.

"Nothing." She mumbled. Troy smirked and settled back into his armchair.

**I know that was ultra confusing, but it was supposed to be a playful, friednly arguement, Troy was just windignb Gabriella up, he really does like her I promise. I'm sorry if i've chnaged the characters a little since the other chapters, but i will read over them and see if i can get closer to how they used to be. If you're still reading this after the enormous wait I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so grateful because you didn't lose faith in me, thank you!**


	7. Different Circles

**Woah, quick update huh? Well I thought it was. I also think this chapter is a little longer than the previous one, and it get really deeply into their feelings, so it's not quite as fluffy as usual (which I like).**

**Disclaimer: Because I'm getting no reviews that means that no one is reading this anymore, so why bother disclaiming ownership of HSM when there's no one to challenge whether I own it or not? That's what I think anyway.**

After their argument, Troy and Gabriella tried to avoid each other for the rest of the evening, which was pretty hard because they were in the same house. Gabriella followed her mum through the house, pretending to be interested in Lucy Bolton's tea set and continuously glancing around to make sure that Troy wasn't planning on sneaking up on her and forcing his company upon her. Troy just stayed in his armchair in the living room, talking with his dad about basketball. He couldn't wait for dinner when Gabriella couldn't avoid him anymore.

When Lucy called for dinner, Gabriella tried to seat herself between the two women, but their continuous chatter forced her to the head of the table. She sat nervously and tried to be as small and unnoticeable as possible. Troy smirked when he entered the dining room and took the seat on her right. As he sat his knee accidentally bumped hers and Gabriella felt an unwanted tingle travel up her leg.

Jack Bolton brought out the plates of food and told everyone to dig in. Troy obliged as Gabriella picked at her food, it didn't exactly look delicious… when she noticed her mum glaring at her Gabriella began eating properly, trying to ignore Troy looking alertly at her on her right.

"So, how's school been for you Gabriella?" Lucy Bolton asked. Gabriella shrugged -her mouth was full- but Elena indicated for her to answer properly, so she swallowed (with difficulty).

"Okay. My singing's going well, and maths and stuff is all good too." She said modestly. Troy smirked to himself, 'good' was an understatement for Gabriella's school stuff, especially in comparison to him.

"What about outside of school, I know that when you started singing you were a little worried that it might impact your relationships." Troy winced when her singing was brought up, both couldn't help but remember earlier that day and the hallway incident. That was the closest he'd gotten to showing Gabriella how he felt, but Josh managed to stuff that up every time. He felt a type of cruel satisfaction when Gabriella shrugged uncomfortably.

"That's good too." Everyone was silent. The adults glanced between each other, hoping for a longer answer than that.

"Gabi has a boyfriend now, tell them about Josh sweetie." Gabriella shot her mum a death glare, then Troy an apologising look.

"Oh, Josh… yeah, we're good as well." She didn't know why she kept on saying 'good', but it seemed to do the job. Everyone nodded as if they understood perfectly.

"What about Troy, how's he doing at school?" Elena asked the question to Troy's parents not to Troy, which Gabriella thought was pretty rude.

"Troy's doing quite well I think. There was winning the basketball finals last year, which was fantastic, and the exams went okay for him…" Troy put down his cutlery and stared stonily at his plate, he hated his parents showing off about him.

"But his studies aren't going as well anymore, not as good as we'd like him to do. He's falling behind quite a bit in maths and science mostly. Basketball seems to make a big indent in his school and social life." Gabriella's eyes widened as Lucy Bolton continued. She could see Troy looking angrily at his plate next to her.

"Mum, my studies are going fine, I just didn't like the test, we hadn't been taught most of the stuff in it." Troy defended himself, and Gabriella nodded in agreement even though everyone knew that she wasn't in his class.

"Regardless, I think 30 is definitely a problem grade. You're much too focussed on basketball, everything else is important you know."

"Basketball is important too." Jack added, although not particularly for Troy's sake, mostly for his own.

"I know Jack, I know." Lucy spared him a few words, before the two mothers dug deeper into their conversation, but Troy had blocked them off. He didn't want or need to hear about how he was a 'problem student' he already knew that. Standing up, he shoved his chair in and took his plate into the kitchen, dropping it in the sink then hurrying up to his room, not bothering at ask if he was allowed. Gabriela stared uneasily after him. She knew that he knew that he wasn't going well in his studies, but she didn't understand why his mum brought it up in such an accusing way, it was hardly his fault that there was so much basketball training that it kept cutting into his classes.

"May I be excused?" She asked quietly, and when Jack nodded at her she walked into the kitchen and put her plate with Troy's in the sink, then went after him upstairs.

Not bothering to try and be quiet, just in case Troy had randomly decided to get changed (unlikely, but not impossible) or if he wanted to avoid her, Gabriella wandered up the stairs and towards his room. She noticed almost immediately that the door was shut; he'd probably known that she would come. Gabriella stared t the door for a moment, was it really her job to comfort Troy? They weren't close, pretty far away from being best friends, and didn't really talk that much outside of school anymore, was it still her job to be there for him?

Stepping back from the door, Gabriella pondered her idea further. Wasn't Chad his best friend now? Everyone knew that. And it was hardly like they ran in the same circles. He spent almost all of his time in the gym, practising basketball or skipping classes. She, on the other hand was always in the science lab with Taylor, or in the music centre doing her singing lessons. She was academically focussed, and almost definitely would get a scholarship for biology or chemistry at some Ivy League college. He was sport centred; everything he did at school brought him a little closer to acceptance into a sporting college. They would never run in the same circles- they hadn't for a long time.

Gabriella sighed and turned around, walking slowly back towards the stairs. She couldn't help feeling a tiny bit of sorrow at the sudden loss she'd discovered. But it was perfectly clear in her mind, one of the few things that formed a clear, straight line between the points of the past, present and future: her and Troy were over. That was if they'd ever began, which she wasn't completely clear about. As she started down the first step she could swear that she'd heard a door open behind her, and passed. She listened hard, waiting for Troy to call to her or approach her; nothing happened. Sighing again, Gabriela continued down the stairs, turning the corner and disappearing from sight, her expression stiff, holding back the dull sadness that she felt.

Troy's cobalt eyes watched her retreating form. So she'd gone. Finally. He kept his door open and leant on the doorframe beside him. Once Gabriella had been his best friend, once, the sight of her leaving without talking to him would have made him disappointed or angry or sad, once he'd liked her friendship. Now he didn't. Now her friendship just wasn't enough. Once he would have yelled at her to come back and talked to him, but now he was older he resisted. Now it was so much more complicated than two friends fighting, because that was just it; they weren't fighting.

He stumbled back towards his bed and sat there, overwhelmed by the dumb reality that he'd lost his friend since pre-school, his long-time crush, and the girl who he had a nagging feeling that he was in love with. That was annoying, wasn't it? Troy suddenly felt a confident urge to go after her, and even as he formed a perfect plan to run up to her and kiss her he drowned the idea. It was stupid, she didn't like him, and she'd just walked away. The reality hit him that for once he couldn't fix it. He hadn't told her to leave; she'd left by her own free will. It had been her decision to walk away from him.

**I actually liked that quite a bit, and fianlly I liekd one of my chapters that didn't involve a make out scene... or much fluff at all really. PLZ REVIEW!!! I got so many for I Want (which isn't over yet) and so many people added me to their author alert so I know that at least a few people must be reading this. Just review once and I'll be greatful. Plus., the deal still stands that if you review enough/ give me a really nice review that's make me feel all warm n fuzzy (see that chapter of I Want where I dedicated to a reviewer from this and one from First Time because their reviews were really nice, and read their reviews for an outline of what to say) I will name a character ater you. Hopfully reading this chapter has made it obviosu that this story has only just beyun, there is plenty more waiting to happen, just you wait... (that was an overuse of the word 'wait', wasn't it?)**


	8. still at dinner

**This story has changed a little becasue I decided to deepen the plot to make it a bit more realistic and more different form the other 'best friends' stories. This chapter has a lot of phylosphical-style stuff in it, with a whole heap of confusingly rhetorical questions, so if you're itred i don't recommend reading it. If you haven't/don't understand what exactly is going on, I'll explain it in the next paargraph, skip that if you don't want to know/already know.**

**--Troy and Gabriella have been friends since they were really little, they have always just sort of been normal friends, talking and joking and stuff, but never all that close. Suddenly, they're both going throuhg that stage in your life where you start to sort of doubt everyone around you. The stress levels build up, and you really desperately need a supportive family and a close group of friends to help you through it. They have both realised that over time their friendship has been changing/disolving and are unsure of whether its changing because they want to be more than friends or disolving because they no longer have anything in common. They still are friends, but it just took an argument for them to figure out that their fights weren't really friendly anymore. They hate each one another because they love one another, make sense? hopfully, PM/review if you're still confused.--**

**I think after this I'll go back to pointless fluff, but I just wanted a slightly deper story. (I may delete all of the last two chapters because thye've changed my original plotline for the story and I'm not et sure on how to fix it, so please bare with the confusion for a while).**

**Disclaimer- Don't own HSM, do own the cool-ish quote type thing in this (wanna gues what it is?)**

Gabriella walked straight past her mum and Troy's parents, now sitting in the lounge again talking over a box of chocolates, she paused just outside the room.

"Uh, mum?" her mum shrugged in answer to one of Lucy's questions and looked up at her daughter.

"Yes sweetie?"

"Can I go home now, I'm not feeling very good." Lucy and Elena both immediately looked concerned.

"Is everything okay Gabi, was it something in the your dinner?" Lucy sounded worried and she thought back over the ingredients in the meal. She hadn't thought to ask if Gabriella was allergic to anything.

"No, diienr was great. I'm just sort of tired. You know, with homework and singing and stuff… it all gets a little stressful by this stage of the year." Lucy nodded understandingly.

"Well, you two can go if you want to, I'd hate to make Gabi sick." Gabriella tried not to look annoyed, why did her lies never work?

"Oh… I don't mind just walking actually. The fresh air will be good for me. Plus, I'm sure you guys still have heaps to talk about, it's not like you can catch up all the time at school like Troy and me." She tried not to wince as Troy's name left her lips. That was a topic that she'd prefer to avoid, but considering that she was at Troy's house, avoiding talking about anything Troy-related could be difficult.

"Yes, it'd be nice if I could stay a little later, but I don't want you walking home so late. I'm so sorry Lucy, Jack, maybe we can have dinner again?" This definitely wasn't what Gabriella wanted.

"Um, mum, look. I don't mind waiting, I guess. I don't feel that bad, just stress, maybe if I just relaxed a little I'd feel better." Why did she have to feel so guilty about something so small?

"That would be great honey, are you sure?" Gabriella nodded to her mum, silently cursing herself for not insisting on leaving.

"Okay. If you want you can have a rest in Troy's room, we don't really have any other spare beds, but I'm sure he'd be fine with that, go on upstairs, if he gives you any trouble just call me." Gabriella pasted a fake smile onto her face and forced her legs to drag the rest of her back towards the torture chamber she'd just escaped from. Why did things always end out bad for her? Always. She folded her arms around her chest and tried not to shiver. A jacket really would have been a good idea.

Troy was surprised when he heard more footsteps coming back towards his room. He stood and looked out his door, even more surprised when Gabriella came into sight, her long tanned legs barely hidden under her shorts and her arms crossed defensively. He tried not to stare as she got closer, instead focussing on a point just above her left ear.

"Hey Gabs."

"Hi."

"Are you okay?" Gabriella felt her insides melt in spite of her recent decision not to get involved any further with Troy. His tone was soft and concerned, but in a different way to Lucy and Elena's. Troy seemed earnestly worried about her, and just her. Not about the school she'd miss if she was sick or the cost of the doctor. He didn't even think about what had made her sick or if he should get her allergy tested, all he cared about was her, right her and now, and how she felt. And she could know all of that from one question, maybe it wasn't quite time to give up yet.

"Yeah. I'm fine, just feeling a little sick. Your mum said I could lie down on your bed, but if you don't want me to that's cool, I can just sit on the floor or something.

"No, it's fine, come in." Troy's tone was blank and expressionless, maybe he knew that he'd revealed too much with his earlier words. Or maybe his other words hadn't meant anything and she'd just imagined all of that stuff. It would be so much easier if she could read minds.

Gabriella shuffled through the door and stood awkwardly in the middle of Troy's room. It had been a pretty long time since she'd been in there, and it showed. The walls, once decorated with photos of Troy and his friends and family were now virtually covered by what seemed like hundreds of thousands of pictures of tall guys shooting baskets or bouncing basketballs. A few posters for bands were stuck to the walls too, and Gabriella couldn't help but notice that their taste in music had nothing whatsoever in common.

"Whoa. This has changed." Completely forgetting that she was meant to be sick, Gabriella stared around the room in wonder. "It's changed a lot." Troy made no response, instead just stood where he was at the door, watching Gabriella.

"I guess. It's been like this fro a while though. I think I realised pretty quickly that it was lame to have pictures of your friends and stuff on your walls." Gabriella's expression was puzzled as she stopped looking around and instead faced him.

"So? Since when have you cared?" Troy shrugged and walked further into his room, sitting down on his wheelie chair at his desk and spinning around to face Gabriella again. Why had she come back?

"Since that same time as I found out it was lame to have photos on your walls." He raised his eyebrows at her, daring her to fight back with him. It was suddenly as if he didn't care. Why did she have to be so confusing? Why did she have to change her mind about everything? Why did she have to come back to him?

"You mean since you decided to conform with society?" Gabriella's sharp tone stung, and Troy would've loved to say he was used to it, but he still wasn't. Why was everything so different now? After all, 'now' had only started about 5 minutes ago, how could so much change in 5 minutes?

"Maybe, I've always seen it as when society decided to conform with me."

"But you were the one who had to change."

"Everyone changes Gabs. It's called growing up. It's just that some people-"

-can't change fast enough to keep up." Troy let her interrupt him, just like he knew she would. He wanted to apologise, why was he torturing her like this when he hated to see her suffer? Because it made everything more real. Seeing her unhappy made him be able to think that she wasn't happy when she saw him, she wasn't excited about being with him, their splitting friendship hadn't split because better feelings had erupted from it. There was a different reason; at least he was trying to convince himself that there was.

"I'm sorry." He didn't even look at her, but he knew that she was crying. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Why do you hate me?" She sniffed, still standing in the middle of the room.

"Because I have to." Troy finally let his eyes wander to hers, and he gripped her brown gaze tightly, unwilling to ever let go of it. He had never wanted her to know anything else more than he wanted her to know this. It was his fault. He'd changed too fast for her, and he had never thought of her on the way, and now that he'd realised how far ahead of her he was he couldn't go back.

"Why are you sorry?" Her tears had stopped, and she even wiped away the trails leading down her cheeks, now her expression was numb, void of feeling or emotion, just nothing. Maybe acceptance, maybe defeat, Troy felt another stab of hurt when he discovered that he didn't know which.

"It's all my fault. We used to be such good friends, really close. We used to laugh together and cry together and everything. But I changed too fast for you, and now it's too late for me to go back, or for you to keep up. I have my group, you have yours."

"We're running in different circles." She summarised, and he nodded slowly, still not able to pull his eyes away from hers. "How do you know that they don't touch?" Her question surprised him, and he was so taken aback by it that he blinked and broke the tie between them.

"I don't, but if they do it's too far away for me to see." Gabriella sighed and sat down on his bed.

"So what do we do? Do we dump more than ten years of friendship because of a problem that we wouldn't even have understood when we were first friends? Or do we just let our own lives decide what will happen?"

"What's the difference? Either way we end up separate."

"Not necessarily." There was silence for a while and Gabriella settled back onto Troy's bed, leaning silently against the wooden bed head, deep in thought. Troy watched her, thinking hard. What did she mean by not necessarily? Was she saying that maybe she felt something too? Maybe she was.

"Why did you walk away?" He asked, knowing that she wouldn't have to ask what he was referring to.

"I had no other choice. You didn't want me to talk to you. We're not that close anymore, I can't just make everything better now, and you can't do that for me either. The only reason why we still even talk is because people expect us to. Were you actually comfortable with me coming over to dinner tonight?" Troy looked down at his knees, was it even possible to answer that truthfully.

"No. It feels like for ages we've been drifting further and further apart. I can't believe it took us so long to realise."

"Maybe the fog on the edge of the horizon has started to drift between us." Troy nodded stiffly. Why couldn't they just talk in normal words?

"Maybe being friends isn't enough anymore." He looked back up at her and let his deep blue eyes bore into her hers. "Maybe the circles do cross, but in a different way than before. Maybe we have to be separate to realise how close we actually are." He was disappointed when her eyes didn't change. She didn't look surprised at his implied confession- she didn't even look unnerved.

"So maybe we should take that time apart now and test both theories. Mine, that we don't need each other anymore, and yours, that we need each other in a different way. See what happens."

"And if I'm right?"

"We'll see." And she let her gaze drop from his, drifting her eyelids closed, although she had no intention of sleeping.

**URGH! confusing and annoying! next chapter I promise there will be less thinking and that sort of annoying stuff. and becasue poeple have been asking TROYELLA ALL THE WAY!!! i hope that answers any questions.**


	9. What about a shower?

**Sorry I didn't update for a while, but I had the storylien worked out and just couldn't be bothered to actually write it cause I thought it'd end up a little longer than it did. I apologise greatly for the number of spelling mistakes in this, just tell me if you don't get some of the sentences and I'll try to translate them.**

**Disclaimer: Hmm, 58 review implies that at least a few people are reading, so maybe it is worht disclaiming ownerhsip of HSM... nah, still not.**

Gabriella squinted into the bright yellow light falling onto her face through the open window on her left. She tried to open her eyes fully, but found herself blinded by the sunlight so quickly closed them again. Where was she? Where had she been when she went to sleep? She couldn't remember. Rolling over onto her side she tried opening her eye again, this time to more success. Just as she was still on her side, the idea to open her eyes buzzing through her thoughts, another idea came, a memory. She knew where she'd been last night.

Sitting up as fast as possible Gabriella tore her eyes open and waved her arms in front of her, searching for some sign whether or not this was Troy's room that she'd slept in or another one that she just didn't remember going to. Eventually her sight returned and she quickly glanced around the room. To her it seemed like the entire room was stained with yellow and white, but it was just the brightness of the sun lingering on her eyes, besides, it was her own stained yellow room, so it didn't matter.

She sighed and fell back onto her bed, squinting when the light caught her eyes again. Why did the sun have to exist? Mentally yelling at herself for a stupid and answer-able rhetorical question Gabriella sat up again and rubbed her eyes, turning around so her legs were over the side of her bed, her toes skimming the beige carpet.

"Mum!" She called, hearing her voice echo through the house.

"Yes Gabi?"

"What time is it?" **("SUMMERTIME!!!" lol, sry)**

"Why don't you just look at your clock sweetie?" Gabriella rolled her eyes and stood, wobbling for a second as her legs got used to taking her weight before wandering around her bed and over to her clock, which was inconveniently placed above her bed so she couldn't see it when she was in it (the bed, not the clock).

"Okay mum." Then Gabriella saw the time. "MUM! WHY DIDN"T YOU WAKE ME UP!?" Gabriella started running madly around her room, grabbing a random top and a pair of jeans and pulling them on, taking about three minutes to realise that the jeans were on backwards and the top was actually a blanket. So much for that approach to rushing, maybe she should rush a bit slower.

"Why did I need to get you up?" Gabriella paused halfway through pulled her jeans back up (this time the right way round). Why did she have to get up early? Oh… right… that… Troy.

"Troy had a basketball game two hours ago, he asked me if I'd go ages ago and I said I would." Gabriella suddenly felt stupid for rushing, it was hardly as if he'd still have wanted her to go. She'd just dumped him… when he wasn't even her boyfriend in the first place… did that even work?

"I'm sorry sweetie, you should've said. I'll call Lucy now and you can apologise." Gabriella barely heard what her mother said, and if she hadn't suddenly realised she may have missed those vital seconds to yell at her mum not to.

"Don't worry, I'll go meet up with Troy later, apologising over the phone seems very insincere." Elena was surprised at Gabriella's apparent sincerity, but lowered the phone watched as her dishevelled-looking daughter came downstairs. Even in her mother's mind Gabriella looked terrible.

"Have you had a shower?" Gabriella didn't even consider her mother's question, and automatically just shook her head.

"Don't have time. Meeting Josh. Got to go. Bye mum. Love you." She muttered, and hurried out the door. Elena watched Gabriella leave and closed the door behind her. Josh might not be too happy.

Gabriella's phone rang just as she stepped out of her taxi and onto the footpath outside the café she was meeting Josh at. After shuffling through her bag for a while, Gabriella finally found the source of the high-pitched noise and dragged her phone up to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey Ella, I was just wondering where you are?"

"Oh, hey Josh. I'm just outside Belladonna's, I'll meet you inside in a moment." Handing some money over to the taxi driver and waving him off, Gabriella flattened her hair as much as she could and composed herself before she started towards the door to the café.

"Don't worry babe, I'll meet you where you are." Gabriella held back an angry noise at Josh's suggestion; she was really hungry.

" No don't worry, I don't mind sitting with you for a while." Josh's laugh came from the other end of the phone before he hung up on her and someone wrapped their arms in a would-be affectionate way around Gabriella's middle. It wasn't affectionate cause at the same time her stomach grumbled pretty loudly which sort of ruined the moment.

"Bad luck, I'm already meeting you here." Josh whispered in Gabriella's ear before kissing behind it lightly, she wriggled uncomfortably in his grip and turned herself around to face him.

"Hey Josh." She put her arms around his neck and hugged him. Sure, she didn't love him, and he sometimes got a little annoying, but he was still her boyfriend, and a nice person besides.

"Hey." He smiled and kissed her lips softly. She kissed back half-heartedly, but didn't let him deepen it and pulled away pretty quickly. He looked disappointed for a moment after they'd separated, but quickly covered it up and smiled at her again. Gabriella let go of him and he began leading them along the footpath.

For the first few minutes of their walk there was complete silence between the couple, Gabriella coughed a few times to cover up her rumbling stomach and Josh watched the path ahead of them as if it were the most interesting thing ever, which Gabriella found slightly offensive, then again, she was the one who wasn't returning the feelings, so she could hardly be the feeling betrayed. Eventually Josh led them into a park and they sat together on a bench, Gabriella didn't even mind when Josh put his arms around her shoulders and began stroking her hair, but she couldn't help wishing that he talked a bit more. That was never a problem between her and Troy.

As the silence stretched on, Gabriella noticed that Josh had his phoen out and seemed to writing a text message to someone, she peered over his arm to see who he was texting, but he blocked the phone from view.

"Who are you talking to?" Gabriella asked casually.

"No one."

"Liar." She muttered and pushed his arm off her shoulders.

"Come on, Ella, I'm just kidding." Josh scooted over on the bench and put his arm back around her. Gabriela felt her insides squirm uncomfortably, and while in the process of trying to convince herself that the squirm was butterflies, just like it was supposed to be, the idea of her stomach returned again when it rumbled loudly. Luckily, the sound was muffled as her phone beeped from her bag and she quickly fished it out, looking for any excuse not to be touching Josh; after her deep conversation with Troy last night it seemed to unnecessary to be talking to Josh about who he was texting. It wasn't like she actually cared if he was cheating on her, was it?

She scanned through her phone until she finally found her inbox. It turned out that Josh wasn't cheating on her, he'd been texting her. Why not just talk to me? She thought, but realised why once she'd read the text. _'Do u wanna come ova 2 my plce 2nite? 3 Josh'_. Gabriella quickly deleted the message, there was only one reason why he'd text her to ask her that, he didn't just want her to have dinner with him.

Once the dreaded message was deleted another one came up, and answer to the last text that she'd sent, _'my fone has a waterproof case, da shower duznt effect it, its easy 2 txt in here'_. Her eyes widened. It seemed like so long ago when her and Troy were laughing over then word shower; or at least she was laughing, Troy was texting jokes. Josh must have been watching her carefully, because he seemed to notice her eyes widening.

"So what do you say? You want to come?" He asked, not knowing that Gabriella had been reading Troy's message not his. Gabriella barely heard him, in her ears, he sounded like Troy, and Josh's question phrased with Troy's text sounded a little bit… intimate.

"Um…" Gabriella's suddenly disappeared, her throat began burning and she felt like she was going to be sick. She shook her head quickly, then stood, stumbling a little as she did.

"Ella? Are you okay?" Gabriella shook her head again as she felt vomit build up in her throat. "Ella? Gabi?" Completely forgetting that she was throwing up, Gabriella opened her mouth to object to Josh calling her Gabi… he ended up covered in vomit. That was probably punishment enough.

"I feel sick." She managed to get out before she threw up again.

"Okay, I'm going to take you home." Josh calmly helped Gabriella back to the street, then hurried her to his car, dodging more vomit as he went.

Now Gabriella was lying in her bed again, except tis time it was notably different because Troy and Josh were sitting on either side of her, and Troy's head was blocking out the sun.

"Hi," she muttered, sitting up quickly then falling down again as her head throbbed. "Looks like I'm staying down here." Troy chuckled awkwardly but Josh stayed silent. He probably felt a little outdone by Troy, who was in his basketball singlet and shorts and looking a lot hotter and sweatier in a purely attractive way, Gabriella didn't fail to notice this either.

"Are you okay Gabs?" Troy asked in a worried tone and she nodded.

"Yeah, just kind of… dishevelled." He nodded, then looked away feeling as if he was intruding upon Gabriella's and Josh's time together.

"Your mum said you looked tired this morning, it's probably just the flu or sleep-loss or something." Josh suggested, tyring to keep himself noticed.

"Hmm, I didn't really sleep well last night. I think I got moved half way through the night." Gabriella couldn't be bothered to consider the potential awkwardness that could come from this comment, and paid the price when Troy added to her words.

"You didn't leave that late, only at like midnight or one." He stopped talking quickly when he noticed Gabriella's expression.

"What happened last night?" Josh asked curiously, his eyes on Gabriella and Troy's worried expressions.

"Oh, um… we had dinner with Troy's family. You knew that, didn't you?" Gabriella began, shooting Troy a look which told him not to say anything.

"Yeah, but your parents were talking until midnight? That seems a little unrealistic."

"And what are you suggesting happened to make Gabi stay that late?" Gabriella groaned as Troy spoke.

"Nothing, we didn't do anything and Josh didn't think that we did, he was just winding you up, Troy." Josh and Troy both looked annoyed and unconvinced at Gabriella's explanation, but she wasn't finished. "Josh, I'm fine, I'll call you to reschedule our date, I'm sorry it stuffed up so much. See you." She leant over to him and kissed him on the cheek, whispered something in his ear and smiled at him, then lay back down and watched him stand and leave, waving to troy as he did, evidently he was happy. Troy felt a surge of jealousy flow through him, but ignored it for Gabriella's sake; they'd already talked about this… kind of.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked innocently, his gaze fixed on Gabriella's closed eyes.

"What are you doing here?" Her eyes stayed closed as she spoke, but Troy could tell she was annoyed at him.

"Your mum called me. She said you wanted to apologise for something." Gabriella groaned and sat up again.

"Right. Sorry I wasn't at your game this morning, I slept in."

"You're forgiven." Troy said immediately, still looking at her hard.

"What?" she asked, unnerved by his eyes fixed so stubbornly on hers.

"That's it? Just an apology, we're not going to talk about… anything else?" Gabriella shook her head quickly and tugged her eyes away from Troy's; he lowered his gaze down to his knees. "Okay. I'll go." He stood and started towards the door, but just before he reached Gabriella spoke.

"Wait." He looked back at her, a hungry desperation playing in his blue eyes. "Can we still just be friends?" Troy was still for a while. Could they? Could they really still act normal after all of the stuff they'd revealed last night? At the time it'd seemed natural and fitting for the occasion, but had it really been the time?

"Yes." He answered, not meeting her gaze. He began turning away again.

"One more thing."

"What?"

"Shower." Troy faced her fully, and let his eyes be drawn to hers. They stuck. Inside he knew that the right thing to do was to laugh, it had been funny at the time, talking about texting in the shower, so why wasn't it funny anymore? That question wasn't nearly as rhetorical as it seemed.

Gabriella's mind whirled out of control as the seconds went on without a response from Troy. She found herself trapped in his cobalt eyes, she felt drawn to them, and apparently was because she stood and walked over to him, stopping about a metre away. A safe distance… sort of. This was going to be a problem.

Troy closed the distance between them with a single step and suddenly his lips were against hers. Suddenly they were kissing very eagerly and her arms were around his neck pulling him closer. Suddenly his hands were slipping under her top and massaging her stomach, exploring around her hips and belly button. Suddenly her fingers were weaving through his hair and she was gasping at every tiny bit of pressure he placed on her body. Suddenly it was over and Troy was whispering in her ear. Then he was gone and she was standing in the middle of her empty room.

Had any of that actually happened? He body told her yes but her brain told her no. It wasn't physically for that to have all happened and for her to still feel so empty and confused was it? His words, whether imagined or not, still echoed through her head.

"What about a shower?"

**Lol, love that last line! But what does it mean? In my mind that's a cliffy, but that's just cause I know what happens next (lol, if you replace the word 'know' with want thet last five words are both names of my fanfics... i'm sleepy :-O zzz)**


	10. So just squash it

**Wow, totally exhausted from a whole day of doing nothing (cause it's holidays) but high enough to be writing at 11:00pm cause I just watched the season finale of The Chaser... I am so jealous of those people who got to be in that final clip...**

**Anyway, I'm so sorry for not updating for so long but I suddenly realised that i had a social life which was/is a frightening concept for me and included an entire weekend of parties and my brother's school's carol service (okay, so the latter is hardly a social event, but whatever), so that's why i haven't updated for so long and I apologise.**

**Disclaimer: Whoa! apparently my 'guilt-trip' style disclaimers are totally working, so I'd better keep using them. No one is reading this terrible story so there's no one who woudl bother turnign it into a film so if I worte this load of... yuckiness... i must be thoroughy incapable opf writing anything half decent such as the High School Musical movies... hmm, that was a pretty long way to sya it, wasn't it. And by the way I was being sarcastic, I really appreciate and adore (but not obsessively) each and every one of my reviewers, so thank you all!**

Gabriella lay on her bed, preferring to pretend to be sick than face her friends and mum, all of whom were concerned about her. She hadn't seen Troy for what felt like a lifetime, but was really only a couple of days. Maybe it felt like a lifetime because she spent about two thirds of her time thinking about him. And an eighth of it thinking about forgetting about him… and the last eighth thinking about what she wanted to eat, because that was important too.

Josh had called quite a few times. In fact he'd called so many times that she'd taken to ignoring the phone, no matter how much she wanted to speak to her friends, it wasn't worth risking Josh. The worst thing was that Troy kept coming by, and every single tie she heard his voice Gabriella had to bury her head under her sheets and pretend to sleep, otherwise her mum might actually have lee him talk to her… and anyone could guess what might happen then.

It had been three days since Gabriella had been at school when Taylor finally decided to go visit her. She knew that her friend was ignoring her phone calls, and everyone else's for that matter, and everyone was worried about her.

"Hey Taylor?" Troy saw her at her locker and ran over to her.

"Yeah?" she asked, turning around and pulling her packed bag out of her locker.

"Are you going to see Gabi?" He came to a halt beside her, catching his breath.

"Yes, have you seen her? Chad said that you went by yesterday." Troy rolled his eyes.

"Oh yeah right, she's uh… ignoring me."

"Why?" Troy shifted uncomfortably; maybe if he'd been talking to Chad he might've said something like, 'because I acted on my stupid impulse and kissed her last time I saw her', but because he was talking to Taylor who he barely knew, he didn't say anything, instead just shrugging it off.

"No reason, she just doesn't like me. But anyway, can I recommend something to you, and make a request?" Taylor looked mildly confused as she closed her locker and hoisted her bag over her shoulder.

"What sort of request?"

"Can I recommend that you don't bring up Josh or anything slightly related to him, or me or anything slightly related to me, and to tell me how she's going?" Taylor couldn't help but sympathise at the almost desperate tone in his voice. She nodded understandingly and turned to leave.

"Sure thing." She smiled, then thought of something and looked back at Troy, already in his basketball singlet for training after school. "But why can't you talk to her yourself? She's known you for way longer and is much more likely to talk to you than me." Troy laughed half-heartedly, but it sort of came out more like a cough because of the lack of humour that he actually felt.

"She won't talk to me anymore, I promise you." Taylor raised her eyebrows in a 'what did you do' sort of way. "We just sort of had a falling out when she came over for dinner. I guess we sort of delved a little deeper than before into our friendship and-" he cut off, his gaze falling as he suddenly lost the air of confidence that he always kept around him at school.

"What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything… much. In fact I mostly just agreed with what she said. We're sort of in different circles now, you know? Running on different tracks," Troy searched for a non-sport related term to try and explain it. "Opposite sides of the cube, that were sort of close when it was still about to be folded into a full cube, but as the make folded it we got further and further away from each other…" he broke off again, and looked back up at Taylor, his expression strangely distant. "Do you get it?" Taylor nodded.

"So just squash the cube." She suggested, shrugging as she turned away and disappeared into the crowd hurrying out of the school to get to the bus. Troy looked blankly at the place where she'd been standing a moment ago, running her words through his head. His eyebrows knitted in a puzzled expression, how could she make such a confusing situation so easy to solve? And more importantly, why hadn't Gabriella, who had the same amazingly gifted mind, thought of such an easy way to solve it? Maybe it was different when you were involved in it, or maybe it was the different analogy that did it. Or maybe, Troy though, maybe Gabriella and Taylor were less alike than he thought.

"Squash the cube…" he murmured under his breath, before turning away and jogging to the gym. His father was going to make him do extra laps if he was any later.

Gabriella looked up from her book when she heard someone knock on the front door. It couldn't be her mum because she'd gotten home half and hours ago, so that just left Troy… or Josh… despite everything she'd prefer the former; around him at leats she had no reason to feel guilty… or at least as guilty, she did feel guilty for enjoying it.

Hearing her mum open the door brought Gabriella back to her senses and she quickly dropped her book onto the floor and pushed it under the skirt of her bed. She turned off her bedside light and lay down quickly, tidying up the sheets a little so it looked like she'd actually been sleeping, not sitting up. Pulling the sheet up to her chin, then, after a moment of thought, the rest of the way over her head, she started breathing deeply as she heard light footsteps coming up the stairs.

Taylor stood at her best friend's bedroom door, maybe Troy had been warning her for a reason. Gabriella's mum said that she hadn't been talking to anyone, and was hardly ever awake when people were in her room. Taylor sighed and knocked sharply on the door, there was no reason whatsoever for Gabriella to be ignoring her… at least not according to Troy.

Her knock was greeted by silence, so Taylor knocked again, harder and sharper than before. More silence.

"Gabi?" she called through the door, pressing her ear against the cold wood in hope of hearing a response. None came. "Gabs? I'd really like to talk to you, and even if you don't let me in I can still talk." More silence, and for a moment Taylor questioned how stupid the entire situation would be if Gabriella really was asleep and she was standing there talking to a closed door. "Please Gabriella, I feel really stupid talking to a piece of wood, and I know you can hear me." If Gabriella was asleep she couldn't hear Taylor talking so she wouldn't know how much Taylor had embarrassed herself.

Rolling her eyes, Taylor opened the door and walked in, not bothering got close it behind her. She was met be Gabriella's wide, brown eyes staring at her. Or maybe she was glaring.

"It's not my fault if you're ignoring me, is it?" Taylor said, before seating herself on the side of Gabriella's bed, seeing no other place to sit.

"I'm not ignoring you." Gabriella muttered; her voice muffled by her sheets.

"No, you're not. You're ignoring everyone, but I am no one, therefore you aren't ignoring me. But Troy, for example, being a someone, is obviously part of everyone, thus it is logical for you to be ignoring him and not me. Hypothetically." She added, considering what she'd just said and how it might have been a much too hasty violation of Troy's recommendation.

"So Troy didn't send you then?" Gabriela concluded, sitting up and leaning against the bed head. Taylor shook her head quickly, maybe a bit too quickly for someone who was telling the truth, which she in fact was. "Or he did send you and told you to bring him up so that I'd think that he didn't send you." This time Taylor shook her head. For a sick person, Gabriella certainly seemed capable of doing a decent amount of high-level thinking.

"No, Troy isn't smart enough to know about reverse psychology, then he might actually realise all of those times that we use it on him. And besides, since when have Troy and I been talking?" Gabriella made a movement partway between and shrug and a nod.

"Okay, you've passed security, but that's only checkpoint one. You may begin telling me your reason for coming here, but I am totally allowed to kick you out at any point if I get uncomfortable or otherwise disturbed by what you say. Or bored." Taylor nodded again; she had never before met this stricter and more robotic side of Gabriella.

"You really don't sound sick." She pointed out, opting for the obvious before actually digging into to proper conversation.

"That's cause I'm not." Gabriella answered bluntly.

"Than what are you doing at home?"

"Avoiding Troy, and Josh, and everyone else."

"But not me?"

"You're not part of everyone, like you said before. Cause you're no one, therefore you're not someone so you can't be a part of anyone; et cetera, et cetera."

"Right, which means you're not avoiding Kelsi either?"

"I'm avoiding everyone who puts themselves in a position to be avoided, neither you nor Kelsi has done that, so I have no desire to avoid either of you. In fact your company is actually much appreciated.

"Thank you, it must be hard to find company when you're avoiding everyone."

"It is. Now did you actually have an alternate motive for coming here, or was it just to discuss methods of avoiding certain persons or groups of people?" Taylor licked her lips, it didn't exactly seem like the perfect time to bring up Troy, but what other choice did she have?

"I was actually wondering what's going on with you and Troy?" She paused, scanning Gabriella's face for any signs of an outburst, and was surprised when she saw a sudden barrier grow between them "He's been sort of antisocial –for him at least- and, you know, you haven't been at school and I sort of-"

"Put two and two together?" Gabriella asked in a monotone, her gaze fixed on her lap.

"Not quite. I haven't actually figured out what happened."

"Do you really want to know?" Taylor nodded slowly, why did Gabriella have to make it seem so big. "Are you sure you can handle the truth." She nodded again. "The full and entire truth with no sugar-coating or pretty little laces to make it seem more innocent and honest and loyal and friendly?" Taylor gasped.

"You guys did it!"

"Did what?" Gabriella asked, almost sure that Taylor knew what had happened. Taylor glanced at Gabriella's open door and lowered her voice.

"You and Troy… you did _it_?"

"Which 'it'?" Gabriella was much too confused, and despite not being sick did have a minor headache as she thought of all the meanings of 'it' possible.

"You and Troy had sex!" Taylor's voice was barely audible, but it echoed through Gabriella's mind like billions of shards of ice cutting into her skull.

"WHAT!? No we didn't! How could you even think that Taylor?" Taylor was a little frightened at Gabriella's sudden outburst, and jumped off the bed, taking a few steps away before answering.

"Well… cause… a lot of friends… do it… and I just thought that maybe you and Troy… I mean you are best friends!" She stammered, trying to figure out the best way to explain herself.

"We're not best friends Tay, me and Troy. We hardly have anything in common anymore, I don't think I've really spoken to him for years." Gabriella settled back into her bed, holding back tears that she couldn't quite explain.

"But what about when you had dinner at his place on Friday, Troy said that you guys talked heap then… or at least that you talked heaps." Gabriella's expression changed from sorrow to anger.

"How do you know that?" Taylor's eyes widened as she realised what she'd said.

"I'm so sorry Gabriella, Troy just talked to me before I left school, I swear he didn't send me here."

"Yeah right Taylor. Can you leave, now, and never come back? In fact, forget the question. Get lost!" Taylor turned and left, not even thinking about turning back or saying anything. Why hadn't she listened to Troy's advice? Why had she brought him up at all to begin with? She nodded to Gabriella's mum as she passed the living room, and as the two's eyes met they both knew that Gabriella was under neither of their control.

Gabriella brushed away the tears dripping down her cheeks, but for every single drop she flicked away another two seemed to appear. The worst part was she wasn't even sure why she was crying; there were so many things for her to be upset about right now.

She'd lost her mum, her boyfriends and her best friend all because of Troy's stupid little impulsive kiss. Why couldn't he have just left them as friends? Why did he need to complicate her life even more than it already was?

And then there was Taylor, how could she have thought that Gabriella and Troy were best friends? She'd been Gabriella's best friend for more than a year now, didn't she even realise? Gabriella's hand stopped abruptly, millimetres away from her cheek. Everyone in her life seemed to have the wrong ideas. Troy thought that they were more than friends, Taylor thought that they were less than friends and Josh thought that they were in love, why was everything so messed up?

Because of Troy. Right at that moment, Gabriella Montez felt as if she truly hated Troy Bolton; at least until her phone vibrated a new message appeared on the screen. In fact two did, and they were both identical, just from tow vastly different people. And both held the same message, '_sorry'_. How could two people so different be so similar, Gabriella thought dully. Then suddenly the answer dawned upon her. They were made that way because of her.

**So now Gabriella has no one left to comfort her, or does she? find out soon (i hope)**

**by the way, I know that I never actually said anythig about her mum not really talking to her eithe,r but I thoguth i sort of implied it early in the chapter, if not... oh well, deal with it.**


	11. Why?

**Hey, sorry ithis has taken a while, but I was updating everything else first, so this sort of got left behind. This is just a chapter to speed the story up, from here on in its short and predictable, just so i can get it finished, which i know is slack, but I'm having to bribe myself to write the chapters for this, and that can't be good.**

**Disclaimer: if I didn't own HSM last chapter, am I really going to own it this chapter? I doubt it.**

Troy sat on his bed deep in thought. Should he call Gabriella? If he did what would she say? What would he say? The thought scared him, why did Gabriella suddenly make him feel so uncomfortable and like he needed to defend himself? Why was he having this huge reaction to her now? Why couldn't he have asked her out two years ago when he knew that all the other guys in the school would beat him to her if he waited? Why hadn't he liked her before… like this?

Groaning, he lay back onto his back, why did Gabriella have to have changed him? He pulled his pillow out from under his head and laid it over his head so that all he could see was the plain black pillowcase, with hints of white light leaking in from around the edges. Why couldn't the world just be black and white? His life would be so much easier.

He started when his phone beeped from his desk and he jumped up and ran over to it, his pillow falling to the floor. Searching through the masses of clothes and paper piled all over his desk Troy took the good part of two minutes to find his phone, quickly opening it and seeing who he'd gotten a message from. Gabriella's name appeared on the screen, along with the words, '_one new message received… read?_'. Pressing 'yes' he watched the tiny screen avidly as it loaded Gabriella's message. Why would she be texting him? Not after everything that he'd done.

Then the screen cleared and Gabriella's message came up. It consisted of one word. Dully thinking that they must have a thing for one-word messages Troy read and re-read that word. What did she mean by it? He backed over to his bed and sat down on it, frowning at his phone. What was he supposed to do now? His question was answered when his phone buzzed again, the name on the screen this time been more surprising then the last- if that was possible. '_Josh_'… that was confusing… and mildly disturbing.

Trying to remember how he'd even gotten Josh's number, Troy checked that message too. It was substantially longer than Gabriella's. '_Have you talked to Gabriella lately? Normally I wouldn't be asking you but it seems like everyone else who could answer me is avoiding me, including Ella herself. I'm sorry if this is weird, we're not really in the same group, but we both care about my girlfriend, so I was wondering if you'd know. And if you've talked to her or done anything with her I really thing I should know. I deserve to know that at least. Please meet me at the park at 5:00pm; I'd like to talk to you in person about this. And don't ignore me. Ella's always saying you're a better person than that. Then again she would, wouldn't she?_' Troy finished reading the message and sat there gaping. Josh was definitely tougher than Troy had thought, if he was willing to accuse the king of the school of doing something with his girlfriend. Nerve… stupid nerve really, who would be stupid enough to accuse Troy of something like that.

Standing, Troy glanced at his clock, it said it was 4:45. Good, he'd be able to make it to the park by 5:00. He smirked and left his room, jogging down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"Hey mum?" Troy asked the woman standing at the stove, stirring something.

"Yeah?" She didn't even turn around.

"Can I meet a few guys at the park and practice a little?" He lied easily, barely computing what he'd even said.

"I guess so, but take your cell with you and be home before it gets too dark." Troy nodded and hurried out of the house, grabbing his phone off the mantelpiece as he passed it. The door slammed shut behind him and he started towards the park. This would be interesting.

---

Gabriella sat up on her bed and stared hard at her desk opposite her. Had she really just sent Troy that message? Had she really just replied to him, after everything he'd done? The icon on her phone told her that she had, but every other feeling told her that she hadn't; which should she believe?

Pushing back her sheets, Gabriella swung her legs over the side of her bed and stood. She walked slowly to her desk and, pushing aside a few stray papers, came upon a worn piece of paper. Turning it over, she sighed as a picture of her and Troy when they were children was revealed, a little faded and blurry, but still definite. They were at the beach, both looking serious as they stood in front of a pile of sand that might have supposed to have been a sandcastle, but clearly wasn't anymore. Troy's arm was around her shoulders in a purely friendly way, but nonetheless Gabriella felt her shoulders tingle at the idea of having Troy's arm around them, even if it was 7 years ago.

Dropping the photo suddenly, Gabriella turned around and scanned her floor for some clothes she could put on. Finding none that she liked, she opened her wardrobe and grabbed a top and jeans from in there, pulling them both on quickly. She started towards her door, slipping on some shoes before she reached it then hurried downstairs.

"Mum?" she called out, still moving towards he front door. When she didn't hear an answer, she just dug through her pocket until her hand found a piece of paper and, pulling out, found a pen and wrote a quick note. Hopefully her mum would see it before she started worrying, because Gabriella had no intention of bringing her phone, it'd just be an excuse for to chicken out.

Walking out the door, Gabriella glanced up and down the street, where would Troy be? Her immediate idea was his house, why wouldn't he be there? But something told her that he wasn't, if he got her message he would've wanted to do something, either to get his mind off her or to keep his mind on her; either way he wouldn't be at home. Deciding to start at the school and make her way around to all his other possible hangouts, she began walking down the street, hoping that she'd find him before it got too late. Otherwise her mum would kill her.

**Mostly a little filler thing for Gabriella, the bit with troy was just so that I could accomplish two thing in the nexct chapter, then there'll only be about 3 chapters left... so this is going to be around 15 chapters long, which is pretty god for me.**


	12. Another Random Druggie

**Short, terrible, but necessary, this chapter really does speed the entire story along so despite the lack of Troyella or any actual plot, this is very necessary. Sorry for the long time to update.**

**Disclaimer: as if

* * *

**

Troy sat alone on a picnic table in the middle of the deserted park, wondering dully if Josh had just told him to go there so that he'd get bashed or mugged. Before he'd gotten the text message, Troy wouldn't exactly have thought it likely that Josh would do something so… rebellious… but post-text-message there wasn't much that he though Josh wouldn't do. And that thought definitely wasn't comforting.

Troy flipped his phone over in his palm, glancing down at it and checking the time every couple of minutes. It was now 5:03, if Josh didn't show in the next 12 minutes troy was going to leave. Sure, he was a little rebellious, and probably stronger and less likely to be targeted by muggers than some other boys (ie, Josh); but sitting alone in the middle of a park, with the sky darkening rather quickly and no one really knowing why he was there or who he was with, he wasn't exactly in the safest circumstance if something did go wrong.

The phone in Troy's hand suddenly beeped and vibrated, the sound echoing loudly through the otherwise virtually silent park. A flock of bats squeaked noisily and took flight, apparently scared by the noise. Troy ignored them and opened up the message on his phone. It was from Josh. '_R u there?_' Making a frustrated noise, Troy quickly texted back his answer, looking up every so often as the back of his neck began to prickle. It was almost as if in some unconscious state of mind Troy knew that Josh was just out of sight waiting for him; but to his conscious state of mind that just seemed weird and mildly creepy, so he barely paid any attention to that particular idea.

"I wasn't sure if it was you or some other random druggie who just came to the park to-" Josh's voice came from a huddle of trees behind Troy, and he whipped around quickly to face it.

"You don't need to finish that sentence, it's me." Troy interrupted, resisting the instinct to jump off the bench and talk face to face with Josh. Staying on the bench was much more 'Troy Bolton'.

"Yeah I know," said Josh, taking a seat beside Troy, who tried not to edge away. "So, have you spoken to Ella?" Troy shook his head, careful not to let any emotion onto his face, and forcing an expression of contempt to appear instead.

"She's not talking to me."

"Why?" Troy winced, and for a moment Josh seemed to think that it was him who'd caused this, and looked slightly excited, but Troy looked back down at his phone and the message that was open. It was the one from Gabriella earlier, and it consisted of exactly that word, '_why?_'.

"Cause of something I did." Troy said passively, smirking just to make Josh think it was bad. Which really it was.

"What?" Troy shrugged and leant back against the picnic table behind him, faking a yawn. "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing…" He answered in mock defence. "At least nothing that she didn't enjoy." Josh's face paled at the point where he was barely visible in the semi-light. Troy held back a laugh and decided that 'Josh-paling' should be an Olympic sport; who can make Josh the palest in less than 5 minutes?

"What did you do to her?" Josh asked repeated, his tone angry.

"Look, it wasn't big or dangerous or deadly or hurting anyone at the time, so I did it, okay? I can't take it back now." Josh now looked perplexed and angry, which troy thought was a very interesting blend of expressions.

"Did you two have sex?" Troy quickly looked at him, then, realising that he was serious, looked away again and tried to hold back another smirk. Where in the world did he get that idea from?

Turns out that Troy should never have tried to hold back a smirk, because he wasn't very good at it and pretty soon one had broken out on his face. Josh seemed to take this as an answer and stood up, looming down in a relatively scary way over Troy, who just smirked back up at him.

"We didn't do it Josh." Troy said, forcing his smirk off his face as he looked up at Josh and trying to look serious. Which definitely wasn't easy when the school's 'perfect, teacher's pet' boy was looking down at him as if he wanted to kill him.

"You did."

"I swear, man, we didn't." Now Troy was being completely serious, because he'd just noticed Josh bringing his fist back in preparation to punch, which wasn't good.

"Why are you lying to me, I deserve to know."

"Josh, dude, listen. I swear me and Gabriella-" he was cut off by a fist hitting his jaw. Hard. And it really hurt. "Josh!" But again he couldn't speak owed to Josh now punching his stomach and causing Troy to double over in pain.

"What do I have to do to you to get the message through, Troy?" Josh asked, a slightly insane glint in his eyes as he once again loomed over the other boy, who was squatting and clutching his stomach. "I've tried to be reasonable, I've put up with it. Gabriella going on all the time about you: 'Troy did so well in that basketball', 'I think Troy's really improving in maths', 'Troy said something so funny the other day', Troy did this and that, Troy's my hero and I love him more than I love you!" He yelled the last part and punched Troy again, taking out his anger in one big solid blow.

Troy crouched, panting, on the ground, vaguely aware of drops of blood falling from his face onto the crumpled sand dying grass under his feet.

"Josh," he started, slowly and quietly, trying to help him see some reason. "Why am I getting punished for this? Haven't you talked to her about it? If you're really so…" he broke off, reasoning that Josh might not like being called jealous so early on and while he was so far away from his normal self.

"How am I supposed to talk to Ella? She barely speaks to me even when we're alone. She doesn't care about me, at least not like she cares about you." Troy felt his heart speed up at these words, but was also painfully aware of the guilt seeping through his body.

"Then why didn't you break it off, if her heart isn't in it then-?" Josh flopped down onto the ground beside Troy, his head dropping into his hands.

"I just thought that maybe over time it'd get better. Y'know, if I impressed her enough, gave her gifts and took her out and helped her and acted like the perfect boyfriend, I thought she might sort of, like me more."

"It might've worked, if-" But josh cut him off.

"If she wasn't already in love with you." Something about that sentence jolted Troy's brain into thinking straight again. Gabriella, in love with him? Very unlikely, even by his standards. He shook his head.

"No, she isn't. She hates me right now."

"Why?" Troy winced again.

"I kissed her." Both boys waited for the others reaction, but when none came at either end, Troy continued shakily. "I didn't really mean to, it's just, we'd been talking, a lot, and it all seemed to fit. We sort of, seemed to feel the same, and I just thought… maybe it could work."

"What about me?" Josh looked up and Troy could see tears mixed with dirt on his face, apparently his hands had been dirty before.

"I wasn't thinking of you."

"Was she?"

"I don't know…" There was silence between them as Troy adjusted his position and sat down properly, fiddling with a stray stick on the ground. He couldn't see Josh beside him, but he could almost sense his body shaking and tears dripping down his face. Both wanted to speak, to say something that would comforts the other, but neither really knew what; it wasn't exactly like they knew each other well.

"Troy?" Two tired and confused faces looked up at the girl approaching them. Both knew who it was. They stood up in unison, Troy flinching as his stomach gave a painful jolt.

"Josh?" Gabriella appeared, looking confused and worried, her eyes flicking between her boyfriend and her… Troy. She gasped when Troy's face came into sight as the moon appeared form behind a cloud.

"Troy, what happened?" he was silent, but couldn't help looking uneasily a Josh, who kept his expression blank. The tears had mysteriously disappeared. "Josh? You did this." His lack of denial seemed to answer her question. "Why would you-?"

"It wasn't his fault Gabi, it was me… us." She looked even more confused at this, but when her eyes met Troy's she knew that Josh knew. He knew what they'd done and how they-she felt.

"I'm so sorry Josh." She whispered.

"I know. Get lost." His words were all in a monotone, and before departing he gave Troy one more punch. Blood spurted from Troy's lips and Gabriella hastily went over to him.

"I'm so, so sorry." She whispered, pulling his hand into hers.

"It's not your fault." He answered, his words slurred because of the blood now streaming into his mouth.

"Come on Troy, you can come back to my place. My mum won't be home yet, and I can help clean you up."

"I really don't think that'd be a good idea." He murmured, wincing as she began leading him to the edge of the park.

"Well I don't think you're exactly in the position to do anything else." Gabriella pointed out rudely, moving her arm to around his shoulder when he stumbled on the unstable ground. "You need my help right now."

"I need you." He said under his breath, closing his eyes as more pain shot through his body. He didn't realise her stiffen momentarily beside him or her worried expression as she continued to lead him out of the park.

**One word: urgh!**


	13. Empty Frame

**Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorryos, sorry, sorry, sorry!!!!! I meant to update soonerm I really did, but then I forgot what I was going to make happen, so you're left with this stuffed up piece of... you gte what I mean. And yes, it is short, but that's cause I wanted to get it back on track. Two more chapters to go. And I promise not to dump this story. That would be mean. Meaner than I've already been by writing something so pathetic.**

Troy lay on Gabriella's bed, a puffy lip the only remaining evidence of his fight with Josh. His eyes were closed as he slept peacefully, blissfully unaware of the chaos that should've been running through his mind.

Gabriella had no such peace.

She stared at the boy before her, his dark brown hair tousled in a way that was so attractive that it couldn't have been casual. He looked so relaxed, so comfortable, that it was hard to imagine that this had been the same boy who'd kissed her so eagerly and desperately all that time ago. When everything had been so much simpler. How could so much change in so little time?

Troy mumbled in his sleep and rolled over onto his side, the bottom of his shirt pulling up a little to expose a small section of perfectly tanned skin. Gabriella swallowed and tried to look away, finding it much more difficult than it should've been. Why had she never felt like this before about Troy? Why had she only noticed now how… enthralled she was by him?

Her gaze slid to the photos on her bedside table. One of her and her parents when she was two, one of her mum smiling up at the camera, one of her and Troy, and one of Josh. With a building sense of guilt she reached over for the one of Josh, slipping the picture out of the frame. Placing the empty frame back onto the table, she stared at the photo, tears swimming in her eyes.

It wasn't that she was upset that Josh had, in effect, dumped her. But of course knowing that made her even more upset. It was the idea of being alone.

Josh was always there, he was a good person for that, just for being there, always present even when she didn't want him to be. He never really left. Except now. Gabriella didn't like people leaving, because past experience had told her that when they left the never returned. Her father was proof of that. And now Josh too.

The first few tears escaped from her eyes.

A pair of blue eyes flicked open beside her, but Gabriella was too caught up in her thoughts to notice. The eyes darkened as Troy scrutinised her, was she crying? If so, why?

Slowly, so as not to scare her, Troy sat up and touched her arm. She barely noticed. Trying to ignore the pounding pain in his head, Troy pulled her closer to him from her seat on the edge of the bed, until she was cradled in his arms. All Gabriella did was sob harder and clutch Troy's shirt. He stayed silent and let her cry.

\**It's chapter 13, it's unlucky!!! So it's allowed to be bad, right?**

**I can't even write a witty disclaimer anymore!!!! not that i ever could, but still!**


	14. Never Alone

**Okay, change of plans, here's the final chapter. I actually don't mind it (for once). I know it doesn't really tie up all the loose ends, so if anyone wants to write a epilogue for me they can, btu I'm not writing one. Sorry, again, but it's just getting too hard to remember what these characters are supposed to be like when I have so many others crowding my brain.**

**Disclaimer: NO!**

The front door banged open, and Troy and Gabriella both jumped apart, blushing and wiping away tears respectively. There was a moment of awkwardness as they both stared at each other sheepishly; where exactly were they now?

The single word that slipped form Gabriella's mouth answered that question.

"Stay."

It wasn't an order- it was a question. A quiet, desperate request from somewhere deep in her heart. She needed someone to stay with her.

Troy nodded and stood, shooting her a quick, but true smile, as he slid open her balcony door and slipped outside, pulling it closed behind him. Gabriella rushed over and drew her curtains shut, just making it back to her bed as her mother arrived at her door.

"Gabi, you're here."

For a moment Gabriella was stumped, where was she supposed to be? Then she remembered her note. "Yeah, the thing that I needed to get done happened faster than I'd thought."

"Oh, okay." Her mother paused, a concerned expression on her face. "Is everything alright?"

Gabriella nodded quickly, forcing herself not to glance at her balcony behind her. She shuddered at the thought of Troy leaving.

"Are you sure, you look a little pale."

"I've been sick," Gabriella shrugged, searching for a way to get rid of her mum whilst still sounding polite.

Elena nodded slowly, then smiled a little and turned to walk away. Her daughter tried to disguise a sigh of relief by coughing over it.

The moment Gabriella's mum was out of sight, Troy opened the door again and bounded back into her room, rushing over to close the other door before sitting by Gabriella on her bed. He stared at her, his eyes piercing through hers.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded stiffly.

"As in actually okay, or just, not not-okay?"

"I'm fine, Troy." Gabriella muttered, refusing to meet his searching gaze.

His expression shifted to confused.

"Your boyfriend just dumped you."

"I know."

"And you're fine?"

"Yes."

Troy raised his eyebrows.

"Then why were you crying?"

Gabriella paused, sneaking a glance at Troy whose eyes were still trying to catch hers. She looked away again quickly, feeling her cheeks heat up at the intensity of his gaze.

"I don't want to be alone."

"You're not." He reminded her, somewhat awkwardly.

"Not like that. I mean, Josh was always sort of there, someone who I could talk to and be with and everything, even when he didn't want me there."

"I've always been here."

Both of them looked down at Troy's words. The truth in them was much too obvious.

"But it's different…" Gabriella insisted in an undertone, wringing her hands nervously.

Troy shrugged and almost smirked. "Not really, at least for me it isn't. Maybe for you it is."

Gabriella looked up, startled by the sudden change in atmosphere. Troy's eyes were burning with blue flames.

"Troy…" she began uneasily; painfully aware of how much she wanted to believe what he was saying.

He interrupted her. "I'm tired of subtlety. We've been dodging around something like this happening for way too long. I've liked you like this for way too long. And now finally you like me back, can't we just settle with that and be happy?"

"It isn't that simple, Troy. What about our families and friends-"

"They'd love it."

"And Josh?"

Troy shrugged.

"He's out of the picture now."

Gabriella groaned at his arrogant tone.

"Troy, when did you become so vain and uncaring?"

"I'm not being vain or uncaring, I'm being what you need, which is honest. Seriously Gabi, we've been hiding from each other for years now. Can't we just be a little more open for one night?"

"This would be the second night, actually."

"And that first time we got so close to the truth, but then ended up with an even stupider lie."

"You mean our circles?" He tone was almost light. Almost as if she suddenly realised what a joke is had been, the idea of them running in different circles.

"Yeah. I think it's suffice to say that all of that circle stuff just made it worse."

"Maybe not."

Troy looked questioningly at her, trying to figure out what she meant.

"Well maybe we were actually right about a bit of that circle stuff, we're running in a circle, getting more an more distant from each other until we're at opposite sides. But then, after that point, we can only get closer."

"How much closer?"

Gabriella's eyes widened. Troy leaned in towards her, his lips a hairs breadth from touching hers.

"I wasn't actually talking about physical closeness."

"But it's got to help, right?"

Troy smirked before brushing his lips over hers.

It wasn't even really a kiss, more of a tease. But it had the hair on the back of Gabriella's neck standing on end at the electricity that soared through her body at the single touch. It was too much t bare.

"Troy, I just got dumped by Josh. I can't do this right now."

Troy chuckled, his face still dangerously close to hers.

"Why did he dump you, may I ask?"

"Because-" Gabriela broke off, and bit her lips at Troy's expression. He knew he'd won. "Because of you."

"Exactly."

Neither of them was conscious of leaning forward, but both were conscious of the sudden feeling that overcame them the moment their lips met.

It was just so _right_. As if long ago, someone or something had decided for them to be together. Had decided for them to kiss like this, so amazing and wonderful that it felt like the first time ever. It felt perfect, as if suddenly everything that had happened before didn't matter.

It didn't matter that Gabriella's mum was so close, and could at any time walk in on them. It didn't matter that they had different friends and did different things. It didn't matter if everything else in the world meant that they couldn't be together. All that mattered was the fact that they were together, and the oblivion from anything else that ever mattered to them that came with that.

It was right, it was meant to be like this.

Eventually they separated, their breaths fast and sharp, but smiles plastered on their faces. Why hadn't they been like that before?

"Still feel alone?" Troy murmured, smirking.

"Not nearly as much." Gabriella answered, moving her arms to around his neck. "But you have to promise me something."

"Anything." Troy's eyes flared with sincerity. She knew that she could trust him.

"Don't leave me, okay?"

His smirk returned as he pulled her closer, crushing her body against his.

"Never."

And their lips met again.

**Aww!!! If you liked this please trying reading I Want as well (but I know most people have already read that), because it is immeasurably better and also HSM. If you like my writiing in general, I've recenrtly starting writing for Twilight and would love some feedback on those ones, especially the one that doesnt have any reviews. PS I'll Never Forget You is going to be a short story, so it might be worth reading too.**

**Thanks to all of those who've stuck with this as it skowly got worse worse, and I really am sorry for stuffing it up. It's really put me off writing stories. Also, thanks for making this my second most popular story ever, it means the wolrd to me that 107 people would go to the trouble of sending me a comment about this. I worked it out that if this had had as many chapters as I want, divided by the average number of reviews per chapter for this, it would've beaten I Want by heaps, which is a fantastic credit to all of you reviewers!**

**Thanks again. Sorry again. Awaiting an epilogue written by a fan!**


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